An Interview with My Mother and Teacher, Joan Eaves
- Alex Eaves
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Teaching Life Lessons and Lessons from Her Life
When thinking about Earth Day and Earth Month, I got thinking about the two mothers who I would not exist without: Mother Earth and of course, my mom. So, I thought it would seem fitting to interview the woman responsible for me being on Earth.
After graduating from college, my mom was a full-time teacher at public schools. But once my older siblings and I came along, she stopped teaching to focus on her children. I remember my mom teaching us all sorts of things at home, but the golden rules definitely stand out: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." "You are what you eat." Those are definitely quotes that I have taken into adulthood with the lifestyles that I lead.
I also had the awkward experience of having my mom teach me in the traditional sense, when she was my substitute teacher a few times in junior high and high school. Fortunately, my friends were kind.
I've also learned lessons from my mom about reusing, while it wasn't always obvious that's what the lesson was about. She has always been determined to fix items over and over, until she truly needs to buy a replacement. That certainly continues, as she is still the go-to for mending clothes in our family. Just recently, I finally gave up on a pair of jeans that she had fixed at least half a dozen times and got a new pre-owned pair. My mom's determination to keep items from falling apart truly mirrors her determination to keep her family from falling apart. And she has certainly succeeded.
While my mom hasn't taught in schools for years, her teaching certainly hasn't stopped. With her 13 grandchildren (and any day now about to be two great-grandchildren), she's had plenty of opportunity to teach them everything from traditional school subjects to sewing to how to be a better human.
OK, here's my mom.
1. So, for many years you were a teacher. What made you want to become an educator?
I loved kids and enjoyed teaching Sunday school.
2. During your years of teaching, were you able to incorporate any reuse ideas in your classroom?
I would use both sides of drawing paper, use crayons until there wasn't enough to hold and collect crayon pieces to melt them at home for projects. Paperback workbooks were not written in, as answers were just on lined paper so that workbooks could be reused every every year. I also got arts and crafts supplies from the free bins that I visited at the Children's Museum in Jamaica Plain, Boston.
3. Considering the years that you were a student, the years you were a teacher and now seeing your grandchildren as students, how have schools become more or less wasteful?
Markers are used, it seems, more than crayons and they can't be reused once they dry up. I've noticed that workbooks are written in instead of copies of pages on paper and therefore need to be repurchased for the following year. On the plus side, the use of computers and doing things online does save a lot of paper.
4. So, while I'm certainly a solutions guy, we do have to address the problems. Where do you see the most waste in your daily life.
In the summer, I purchase water in small plastic bottles to be used by my grandchildren when they come to visit to swim in my pool. The reason for this being I don't want anything glass to be used around the pool or anything that I have to wash in the dishwasher because I have a 20 ft deep well that draws from groundwater. And in extreme heat, the supply of water to my well can be extremely scarce and a few times nonexistent. My well has dried up! At one point, my neighbor had to supply me with water through his garden hose connected to my outside spigot for three months! All plastic bottles are collected and recycled.
This makes me want to figure out a better solution for my mom this summer...
5. In your personal experience, how do you think recycling has worked and NOT worked as a solution to waste?
It seems to me that recycling plastic, cans and bottles has certainly kept these items out of the landfill and hopefully the ocean and reprocessed to have a new life in some form or another. The not working part is when people just toss recyclable items into the trash out of pure laziness and not wanting to take the time to separate.
6. How do you think the U.S. could step up the solutions to our waste problem? Have you seen or heard of anything anywhere else?
Reusing as much as possible: composting, repairing items of clothing, furniture, and mechanical and electronic items. And the list goes on. If something has outlived its usefulness to you, it can be donated or parts of an item may be recycled or reused in another way. Local online marketplaces advertise people's items for sale that in previous years have just been tossed out.
7. It's funny. I always tell people that reusing is nothing new. It’s been going on long before we were here. Do you have any memories of your parents or grandparents reusing in unique ways?
Cloth diapers, cloth sanitary products, clothes sewn at home and passed down from one kid to the next, reusing, frozen food packages instead of an ice pack, holes in socks mended, shoes taken to a cobbler to be resoled...etc, etc
8. Do you have any notable stories about saving money on something because you bought it used instead of new?
My parents' first car in the 1960's was handed down from a family member. It was 1950 Chevy Bel Air. When we finally got a new used car, a 1961 Oldsmobile Skylark, we donated the '50 Chevy to the vocational school in Quincy for use in their section for learning about car parts and repair.
My first car in 1966 was a wrecked 1960 Ford station wagon that was bought at a junkyard and rehabbed using parts from a discontinued used police car and various other used parts. When we put an addition on our house in Norwell, we used perfectly good windows that had been discarded by a construction company. The large Play House for my kids in the back yard was from all used materials too.
9. Have you ever taken anything out of the recycling bin or trash to reuse somehow or maybe found something on the side of the road?
Many times! A dining room table from the Cohasset dump, wicker kitchen chairs from the Hingham dump, and countless times digging into my recycle bag to pull out a cover or a jar or a plastic container that I needed for some food item or store something in.
When my kids were little, we went to the Children's Museum in Boston that had a reuse room of all kinds of little items (thread spools, corks, swizzle sticks etc,) that you could use for arts and crafts. I would bag up a bunch of stuff to use with my kids at home, just like I had done when I was teaching fourth grade in Quincy.
10. And lastly, what’s the best thing that you ever got used and why? Got a photo?
My house.... significant, as it was the first major purchase on my own!! It was 80+years old and is 100 years old this year!
To order one of the REUSE! Box Truck T-Shirts like my mom
is wearing in her profile photo, head over to the STAY VOCAL shop.
COMMENT SECTION BELOW
Your mom is my cousin. Our parents reused and repaired everything that could be refurbished . If something was still usable, and not needed anymore, we donated it. Somewhere in the 70s to 90s , our society became a throw away society. It's good to know that people are still reusing. Thanks for all you do Alex