April 21, 2004

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Palo Alto Online

Forever young

by Colleen Corcoran

Grandma Virginia Debbs, sitting in a sandbox and surrounded by muddy kids, looks like a crayon in cobalt blue pants and a red sweatshirt.

Virginia, 79, makes mud cakes and tells stories that are constantly interrupted by the gaggle of 3 and 4 year olds. "Look at this Grandma Virginia," and "Come over here, Grandma Virginia," kids interject as she retells tales of her weekend's adventures.

"Can you see why I can't retire?" Virginia said.

After 30 years of teaching at the program, Virginia, who turns 80 in May, continues her devotion to the Co-op on Louis Road. Childlike and active, Virginia bucks the senior citizen label assigned to people her age.

"A part of all of us is still childlike," she said. "We get all this pressure to give that up, but it's the childlike part of us that is so dynamic and reaches out to different situations, different people."

She spends her free time hiking to Granite Lake in Yosemite, hosting student tea parties and picking wild berries on Mount Tamalpais. She described the huckleberries up there as small but very intense. The same could be said of a woman whose basic philosophy is simplistic, yet powerful.

"One of the most important things I've ever heard her say is, 'That's not friendly.' 'That's not friendly' kind of covers every transgression. It's something that children and parents can all understand. I think Virginia's basic underlying life philosophy is that we all need to be friendly to each other," said Lucinda Abbott, the head teacher for Virginia's class. "She has this incredible way of loving every person that comes into her arena,"

Virginia's maternal manner has made her more than just a teacher to the hundreds of children she's gathered into her lap over the years.

"She is just like our family. Whenever something special happens, the first person I think of besides my family is her. The most important thing we learned from her is love," said Joy Lu, whose now fourth- and first-grade sons attended the school.

Virginia pursued a teaching career in part because of her own lost years in kindergarten due to a bout of whooping cough. As a graduate student studying economics at Harvard, Virginia's two mentors noted her dedication and enthusiasm for her volunteer work at a local childcare center.

"'Virginia, you really are in the wrong field,' they said," Virginia recalled. They arranged for her to get a scholarship and take early education classes at the Eliot-Pearson School, she said.

She taught in Boston. She taught in Palo Alto at the Unitarian Church, the Congregational Church, the Methodist Church, the First Baptist Church -- wherever there was space for a parent education program. In 1969, she assumed the role of director at the Parents' Nursery School Co-op.

In existence since 1950, the school is a parent-education learning lab owned by parents and attended by both parents and their children. The goal of the school is to serve as a surrogate home -- to feel more like home than school and be as much fun for parents as it is for kids.

In a sense, its philosophy is based on the lifestyle of Virginia's youth. During the 1930s, co-ops were a way of life. Poverty was widespread, and sharing a necessity.

"Everyone was poor that we knew. If someone brought a box of peaches to this little oil town [in the Kettleman Hills], they'd be shared everywhere. If you go fishing, you bring it back and share it right away," she said. "And it's almost that way here. It isn't just that it's old-fashioned and small town; it's really how we work."

The school functions like a close-knit neighborhood. There is no janitor, no gardener at the school. The parents do it all. If someone is making lemonade, everyone squeezes lemons. If someone takes the paint out, everyone arrives to paint. Every parent has a key to the building. There are group camping trips. Families come together for parties, for Thanksgiving.

Even classes feel more like home, than school. Class proceeds as though someone dropped a box of toys in the middle of the floor, stepped back and watched events unfold. Few rules exist.

"I'm a little uneasy about it, but she (Virginia) reassures me, let them experiment," said parent William Mankey of Virginia's teaching process. "I'm learning a lot. I'm learning so much about how to look at the kids and make it so they're able to learn and get the right environment."

If Grandma Virginia is up to something, you can be sure that a line of kids will follow behind.

Sitting in the sandbox surrounded by kids, Virginia made mud cakes and sand muffins.

"Here come the muffins. Oh, they're hot," she said.

Virginia described her weekend to them: "I went hiking, and I saw poppies with yellow centers. ... And the lupines smelled like honey on hot toast."

"I'm gonna be a teacher when I grow up," said student Carter Spreen. Colleen Corcoran can be reached at ccorcoran@paweekly.com.

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