DATE: Wednesday, September 3, 1997          TAG: 9709030483

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SERIES: Back to School 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:  101 lines

SHE TOOK YEARS TO GET TO HEAD OF CLASS

It wasn't working.

Erdie M. Hutchings had spent her whole life wanting to be a schoolteacher. Tuesday morning, at age 41, after years of working and studying and dreaming, she finally had ``quenched that thirst.''

She was in front of her own class: 21 fourth-graders at Kilby Shores Elementary School. It was their first day and her first day. And her first activity wasn't working.

You all are news reporters, she told the class. Each group of two or three desks had newspaper sections on them. Pick a story, and tell the rest of us about it.

Hutchings wanted to emphasize current events in her class. She wanted to check on reading skills. Maybe most of all, this first day, she wanted to avoid the cardinal sin of boring her kids with too much paper-and-pencil work.

Intrigue them, involve them, excite them, teach them, but never bore them. Hands-on activities, that's what she wanted.

But the students were having a tough time with many of the words. There was reading only, no summarizing or playacting the news-broadcaster role as she had envisioned.

Flexibility. She knew that was the teacher's tool-of-the-trade, children being what they are and the first day of school being what it is.

The overhead public-address system repeatedly squawked, the office seeking this student or that, telling teachers about new bus schedules and enrollment forms. New students kept showing up, looking for their assigned seats.

Hutchings' room had been ready since July, not long after she got the job. This first day had been planned almost as long. But she knew she needed to be flexible.

She had always been flexible. Just like she had always wanted to be a teacher.

She was one of 13 children with one parent at home in Portsmouth's Ida Barbour public housing, and knew that college wasn't going to happen for her right away. After graduating from Wilson High School, she joined the Army for the money and education benefits. She spent part of her three-year tour as a postal supervisor, sleeping atop mail bags clutching a loaded handgun and M-16 military rifle, guarding the valuables within.

She met her husband in the service, and traveled in the United States, Korea and Germany with him. She reared three children; a son started college this fall, a daughter is in high school and another son is in third grade. She cared for 32 foster children over the years, tutoring many. For almost a decade she worked as a teachers aide with students with learning problems.

And, beginning in 1988, she started taking college courses, using her military benefits and squeezing in a class or two whenever she could. It took her seven years, but she finished her degree in 1995 at Friends University in Wichita, Kan.

The same year, her husband retired from the Army and the family moved to Suffolk. Hutchings worked again as a teachers aide, took a few more courses at Norfolk State University and Paul D. Camp Community College, did her student teaching, and was ready to realize her dream. She was hired as one of about 85 new teachers in Suffolk.

Her children advised her before her first day: ``Be yourself.'' She took her 8-year-old son, Brandon, into her classroom most evenings during the late summer, getting him to critique her room from a student's viewpoint, seeking his suggestions for what best motivates his peers.

Her principal and fellow teachers praised her as a good catch for the school. Teachers huddled with her Tuesday morning in the moments before the children arrived, offering last-minute suggestions and encouragement.

Hutchings' mentor teacher, Lynn Barrett, acknowledged that Hutchings was nervous. ``But she's going to do fine,'' said Barrett, who was beginning her 19th year in the classroom.

Hutchings had planned about 10 things to do this first day, knowing it would be a day of excitement, and nervousness, and interruptions.

She greeted the first student to enter the class with a big smile. He was a slightly built transfer student from out-of-state with neatly combed hair and a backpack nearly as big as himself. ``How're you doing? You excited?'' she asked.

At a few minutes after 9 a.m., she turned off a tape of light piano music. ``We're going to get started now,'' she said.

But the news activity didn't work. Flexibility, she remembered. She had the students stand, arms straight out at their sides, and spin in place. She spun, too.

``How many are dizzy?'' she asked the giggling group. ``That's because those brains are stimulated.''

She took attendance, and then jumped into another activity: having the students tell the class something about themselves. Most listed their siblings and favorite sports.

Then the children measured large wooden dowels, using everything but rulers as rulers: pencils, glue sticks, index cards, a math book. As with the newspaper activity, Hutchings used this as a check on their abilities.

Then they were into their math books. Their spelling books. Going over class rules. Writing down homework assignments.

``Will we get a chance to do homework in class?'' a boy asks.

``No - what would be the point of Mrs. Hutchings giving you homework?'' the teacher answered.

Teacher. It's a label Hutchings has always wanted. And she won't mind ``role model,'' either.

``I just want them to see that anything is possible, if you work hard at it,'' she had said earlier. ``All these years, I have finally reached it. Now I want to help someone else.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Motoya Nakamura

Flexibility is the rule and learning is the goal for Erdie M.

Hutchings...

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