If you’ve had Ms. Geary as a teacher, you likely know the stories about how she was hit by a train, poisoned, strangled, and tazed (although not all at once). Even if you haven’t stepped foot in the room where she teaches, these stories float around the entire school building and have earned Ms. Geary the status of an MHS legend. Now, after 22 years of teaching, Joan Geary prepares to say goodbye when she retires this Friday, January 31.
Reflecting on her teaching career and the lessons she has learned throughout her time at MHS, Ms. Geary consistently comes back to one thing: the students. Over the past 15 years at Marblehead High School, Ms. Geary has taught chemistry to hundreds of kids, but before teaching, she worked in analytical chemistry and cancer research. Once she became a parent, Ms. Geary turned to teaching in order to have time to work and raise her family, and she continues to incorporate a parental influence into her classroom. Ms. Geary is extremely understanding, and she is eager to help her students learn potentially confusing chemistry concepts by uncomplicating the lessons. One of her favorite labs she performs with her students every year is an aluminum foil and copper chloride reaction, which demonstrates “a ton of chemistry concepts in a tiny beaker,” such as the four pieces of evidence of a chemical reaction. After 15 years of labs like this, which often require the use of a hot plate and potentially emit smoke, Ms. Geary is proud to hold the record among the chemistry teachers for causing the least fire evacuations (zero!).
This clean safety record is impressive, but Ms. Geary’s legacy extends far beyond her individual achievements. What distinguishes Ms. Geary from other teachers is the learning environment she facilitates, one based upon mutual respect between herself and her students. Ms. Geary accepts her students for who they are, and together they bond over conversations about what interests the students, both in chemistry and beyond, always devoting at least a few minutes at the beginning of class to discuss last night’s game. In 2011, when the Bruins won the Stanley Cup, she and her classes followed the team’s progress, and when they finally won, it was a shared victory between the Bruins, MHS, and Ms. Geary. As a life-long fan, Ms. Geary had waited for this win her entire life, and celebrating the victory with her students was one of the highlights of her time at MHS. It is experiences like this that Ms. Geary insists have built within her a “sense of community from the kids,” even though she is not a Marblehead resident. Ms. Geary comes to root for the school teams and watch the school performances, because as she says, these experiences, “Let me see another side of [the students and] see a different person on the court or the stage or the ice.” Everytime she wears red and black, she thinks of Marblehead. The school has left an impression on Ms. Geary, and Ms. Geary has certainly made an impression on her students.
Yet in two years, when the Class of 2022 graduates, no more MHS students will have had Ms. Geary as their teacher. This thought is still sinking in for Ms. Geary, especially as she anticipates the prom red carpet, an event she annually attends in order to see yet another side of her students. In two years, she will no longer know the kids who are heading to prom. They will no longer know her. And yet in a sense, we all know Ms. Geary. She’s the kind of teacher we’ve all had, or at least have always wanted—the kind whose presence is so comforting that when you enter her classroom on a bad day, your mood immediately improves. She is kind-hearted, and makes jokes with her students, and she believes in them day in and day out. She says that every single day of her teaching career, she has learned something from these students, and every day she comes to work, she laughs, a habit that she insists is rare for many working adults. So no, Ms. Geary has not been abducted by aliens, no matter what you’ve heard. However, she has stolen the hearts of MHS, and we’ll miss her very much. Thank you, Ms. Geary, for your contribution to the students of Marblehead High School—you’ve certainly made our lives better.