Photo By Lauren Russell | Nicole McDonagh, a Hanscom Primary School teacher, looks at her childhood home from...... read more read more
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. – Warm autumn sunlight pours in through the wall of windows and spills over the row of shelves where books about planets and dinosaurs sit with their spines to the room.
Name tags are neatly taped atop the small tables that fill the room and a banner that runs the length of the white board spells out the ABC’s.
The sign on the door reads, “Mrs. McDonagh – 2nd Grade.”
Nicole McDonagh, a Hanscom Primary School teacher, had always wanted to be a teacher and has just begun her first school year here.
“I love the look on the kid’s faces when they understand something,” she said. “To see the lightbulb go off is the greatest feeling.”
Although McDonagh is new to the position, she’s not completely new to the base; she grew up on Hanscom during her father’s active duty years and attended HPS from grades one through five. She went on to attend Burlington High School in Burlington, Massachusetts. After graduating from Fitchburg State University, she moved to Florida in 2005 for a change of scenery and seasons. Now with a family of her own, she decided this past year was the time to come back.
“It was awesome to grow up here. There was so much freedom to just go outside and play,” she said. “I would walk to the playground behind the school from my house.”
From her classroom window, McDonagh can see a glimpse of the mint-green vinyl siding through the trees whose leaves are just beginning to turn red. In base housing, her childhood home has been preserved through time.
“I told the kids that they could see my old house,” she said. “We all looked out the window so they could see it. I brought in old photos to show them too.”
School portraits, a photo with her dad in his dress blues, and pictures of children playing outside and eating ice cream on a concrete stoop are kept neatly in a small bag. Inside her middle school yearbook, “moved” is scrawled across countless photos in sparkly purple ink.
Having grown up in a military family, McDonagh saw her friends come and go as the orders came in. She knows what it’s like for her students who are constantly saying goodbyes and starting over at a new base.
“I have five kids who are brand new this year but you would never know,” she said. “These kids are so resilient and so welcoming. This is all they know.”
McDonagh said all she wants is to be part of a school that feels like family, and that even while she was gone, Hanscom has always felt like home. Her extended family still lives near base and her mom still shops at The Exchange.
McDonagh credits the military with shaping her into the person she is today. To come back to Hanscom brings her full circle to where she feels she’s meant to be.
“Things may look different, but they’re really the same. Hanscom has always been a part of my life,” she said. “It just feels like I’m home.”
| Date Taken: | 09.20.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 12.19.2019 10:10 |
| Story ID: | 356365 |
| Location: | HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, MA, US |
| Web Views: | 23 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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