GROTON, S.D. (AP) - When Groton seventh-graders start family and consumer sciences class, many of them don’t know they’ve already encountered their teacher’s mother.
Renee Swisher is one of two kindergarten teachers at Groton Elementary School. Her eldest daughter, Lindsey Tietz, is the family and consumer sciences teacher at the high school.
Both felt called to the profession.
“When I was a little girl I always played school,” said Swisher, a 1975 Northern State University graduate. “Every little girl and every child in the neighborhood had to play school with me. … I just always knew I was going to be a teacher. … I never had any real questions, that was what I knew I was always going to do.”
While her mom might have been a part of the influence, Tietz, 38, was drawn to family and consumer sciences on her own, she said.
Between 4-H and family and consumer science class in high school, she said she really fell in love with the subject.
“To be able to put the two together - between the cooking and nutrition and sewing. … There’s a lot of facets to FACS and there’s a lot of different areas that we cover, but it’s really all life-skill type things,” Tietz said
Because they don’t share a last name anymore, many people don’t realize that Tietz is Swisher’s daughter right away.
“My first year of teaching (in Groton), the seniors that I had that year were my mom’s first class of kindergarten students,” Tietz said. “It’s kind of a weird little happening.”
Both Tietz and Swisher graduated from Groton High School. Swisher went on to Northern, Tietz to South Dakota State University.
And they both taught elsewhere before moving back to their home community, Aberdeen American News reported .
Swisher first taught third grade in Watertown, then fifth grade in Groton, before moving on to kindergarten 20 years ago, she said.
Tietz taught in Minnesota for a year before moving to Sioux Falls and eventually settling back in Groton, she said. She’s taught for 11 years.
Now in her 41st year, Swisher said she has gotten to teach her children and her grandchildren.
“I think as a teacher you almost are stricter with a family member because you never want to feel like you’re showing any partiality,” she said.
Tietz said she has noticed in her own home that her kids draw a line of separation between teacher and grandmother.
“Even at home, my son, when he’s talking about school, and talking about Grandma, he still refers to her as Mrs. Swisher at home,” Tietz said. “It’s almost like he separates her into two different people.”
Because the elementary and high schools are in separate buildings, the pair doesn’t see each other much during the course of a day, they said.
“Our schedules are very, very busy, and so we very seldom see anybody (outside of their building),” Tietz said.
Occasionally, though, they’ll do some projects together.
“One thing we do together, and it’s fun sometimes, different times during the school year, the FACS curriculum has something to with early childhood, so they’ll come over and they’ll observe our 5- and 6-year-olds in kindergarten,” Swisher said.
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Information from: Aberdeen American News, http://www.aberdeennews.com
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