Building Community Every Day: Jill Gibbons ‘80

When Jill (Hasbrouck) Gibbons ‘80 enrolled at Fay School in the fall of 1976, she thought her parents had made a terrible mistake. Jill’s older brother Mark ‘79 was already at Fay, but since the school had only been co-ed for four years, Jill arrived to discover there was just one other girl in her class! Add to that the culture shock of a dress code and mandatory afternoon sports, and Jill remembers wondering what her parents had signed her up for. But those initial misgivings were soon forgotten. Jill, who grew up in Southborough, was joined by girls from St. Croix, Mexico, and Iran, and she recalls being fascinated by her friends from around the world. Her other standout memories of her Fay years are almost all focused on the phenomenal teachers that she had along the way.

 

After college, Jill started her own career as a teacher, first as a special needs teacher at the Gifford School and then in the Southborough and Weston public schools as an inclusion specialist. Jill joined the first grade team at Fay in the fall of 2004 and has been there ever since. Jill’s children, Lindsey ‘10 and Ryan ‘13, also attended Fay and are now out building their careers, with Lindsey following in her mom’s footsteps as a fourth grade teacher in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. We recently sat down with Jill to talk about the lessons she learned as a student at Fay and how those have carried over to her own classroom decades later.

 

Sports and academics came very easily to my brother, but I always had to work hard. Fay’s effort system reinforced the idea that hard work ultimately pays off. Even though I might not have gotten a 95 on the test like my brother did, I got better efforts, which made me feel more self-assured.

 

I think I’m always in the corner of the kids who don’t get it right away because when they finally read their first book or accomplish that task they’ve been struggling with, it’s such a big moment. I got a letter last week from a former student who was in my class in 2011. She remembered all the times I sat with her while she buttoned her coat. She struggled with it and would cry. But after about a month, she would get one button down, and then we could go out to recess. By the end of the year, she was doing it all herself, and I was so proud of her! Some people need more patience than others, and that’s okay. 

 

I love knowing that I'm teaching vital skills like reading, being a good friend, loving school, and building community every day. The other special thing about first grade is that from the first day of school to the last, the kids run to be in class with big smiles on their faces. I think that’s why I never left first grade. They’re so excited to be in class every single day. They're excited about homework, they're excited about everything, and you can't beat that!

 

I always say, ‘Just do your best.’ You always know when you have done your best, and that's what matters. Nobody's perfect, and everybody makes mistakes. And they get that. The kids love to point out my mistakes, and when they see that, it helps them realize that mistakes are okay.

 

I love the small classes, and I love the family-style dining. I especially love it when the sixth graders come down to have lunch with us, and they reminisce with the first graders or the kindergarteners about what they did when they were in Primary School. They’ll say to me, ‘Do you remember when…?’ and I do!