Deanna Inions has always been “Mom” to me. Now, she is saved in my phone as “my momma” but that is more for the amusement of those around me in the produce section at Food Lion when I say very audibly, “Siri, call my momma.”
However, to thousands of students at Union Elementary School in Shallotte over the span of nearly three decades, Mom was called something else. She was “Ms. Inions.”
That name had staying power. Even after I befriended fellow students who converted to weekend overnight company and despite Mom’s pleas to call her Ms. Deanna, Ms. Inions remained the moniker for most.
As I got older though, I realized why Mom’s impact resonated on so many of her students and why any modification to that classroom dynamic would be an uphill climb. You see, Mom was an art teacher. From kindergarten to fifth grade, art is most student’s favorite subject. They get to explore the wide world of colors, learn about scale and proportions and be celebrated for their creativity. There are no rigid rules like grammar or arithmetic in the artroom. Anything goes.
I know Mom cherished her role as an incubator of expression. She must have because it took its toll on her body, mind and pocketbook. Mom never took the sit-back-and-watch approach. She was on her feet eight hours a day, between the easel, board and students’ tables. That dedication to engagement came at a cost. She developed a crippling addiction to Sun Drop. I’m happy to report she is in recovery.
It also exacted a heavy toll on her body, from arthritis to back pain.
One of the students’ favorite lessons of the year involved making pottery. Those items would be fired in a kiln in the back of Mom’s room with a colorful glaze. Thousands of other moms surely received a Mother’s Day present constructed in Mom’s art room. Even though it meant untold unpaid hours after school waiting for the kiln to complete its cycle, Mom never wavered. It mattered to her because it mattered to them.
She may not be teaching anymore, but I remember what it was like. Now whether I realized the full scale of that dedication at the time is a different story, but I firmly appreciate it now. Mom was not much of a football fan, which was good because Sunday afternoons were not for watching the game. They were for lesson plans. She also did not have an affinity for luxury, which was good, because art supplies cost money and the paltry stipend the school provided did not permit the broad horizons Mom sought to make possible for her students.
The physical and financial hurdles that my mother cleared every year for nearly three decades is as timely now as ever. On May 1, educators from across the state went to Raleigh to urge our legislators for better classroom conditions. North Carolina might be home to a robust university system but our public schools are hurting.
Despite calls to the contrary, however, our schools are not failing. They are being failed. They are being failed by a system that seeks to blame them for societal ills instead of realizing healthy, funded public schools are the solution. For 27 years, my mother did not just teach students, she showed them something inside of themselves. She showed them that they had the keys to unlock their own potential and to push the boundaries of what others might expect of them.
I have to question anyone who questions a teacher’s motivations. They are underpaid and overworked. They are underappreciated and overly scrutinized. But they keep showing up and drowning out the noise because they don’t do it for you or for themselves. They do it for their students.
I love you, Mom. Thanks for instilling in me a love for public education and an appreciation for our public educators. I am who I am because of Brunswick County Schools and the University of North Carolina. But more than anything, I am who I am because of you.
Happy Mother’s Day.
Chandler Inions is the editor of the Salisbury Post.
