Former Warren Students Pay Tribute To Their Old Elementary School Teacher

CLINTON TOWNSHIP (WWJ) - It was an unusual gathering recently at a tavern in Clinton Township. A group of childhood friends were getting together during their trips home for the holidays when they decided to call up their old elementary school teacher, Mrs. Fenn.

Carol Krause-Lausman made the call and Marilyn Fenn showed up at Bar Louie, where nine former students from the early 1970s were gathered.

It was a surprise, said Krause-Lausman. "She walked up the stairs at Bar Louie and everyone just started screaming." It was a rock star welcome for the teacher the students remember as someone who loved them.

Krause-Lausman said that at Carlson Elementary in Warren's Van Dyke Schools in 1972, times were very different. They came from big families, she said, and school was like a home away from home.

"Your teachers...they cared about you. They were really part of your life....if something was wrong, she would know...and I think teachers have lost that."

Marilyn Fenn was a teacher from 1963 to 2011. She retired, she said, because she didn't like what had become of her profession. Fenn said that teachers used to have the time to teach a subject until the students knew it inside and out. Now, she said, with the emphasis on tests and test scores, "we don't spend enough time on any subject. We're touching on everything."

She believes students aren't given enough time now to actually retain what they were taught.

Fenn said parents also used to have a lot more contact with teachers. "We not only had Mr. and Mrs. Krause, we had Phyllis and Bernie. I mean we knew those people by first names and we were friends, we weren't just their teachers."

She believes many parents today are too busy and too self-centered. "There are very few parents who associate with the teachers any more and sometimes when they do, it's in a negative way."

It wasn't all fun and games. Mrs. Fenn was no pushover. There was that time Kraus-Lausman cheated on a test and Mrs. Fenn made her take take the test home for her parents to sign and see what she did. Another time, Mrs. Fenn tried to cure her clumsiness by making her walk with a book on her head.

It didn't work, but her methods obviously paid off. Every member of the gathering become a professional, in the health care field, in real estate and in law. Krause-Lausman is a therapist who has lived in Japan and traveled the world.

Fenn is modest about any achievements. When it was pointed out that few people, like teachers, get to feel they've made a difference in the world, Fenn deflected the praise.

"We all like to think we do, but I'm not so sure," said Fenn. "If we helped somebody or made a difference, I'm thankful for it."