Esteemed Marquez Teacher Lessin to Retire, After a 40-Year Career

Before the annual May Day flower delivery to neighborhood homes, Marquez Elementary School teacher Mary Ann Lessin directed her first graders, “Pick up your flowers and line up.”
Her students did exactly that. Anyone who has ever tried to herd 20 six- and seven-year-olds would have admired the ease with which Lessin achieved her task.
Lessin, who has either worked as a teacher or teaching assistant at Marquez since 1984 and is retiring this month, explained: “The May Day tradition started about 11 years ago when a teacher shared that her first-grade class at her former school delivered flowers to the school neighbors to celebrate spring.
“We thought it would be a great way to thank our neighbors for putting up with the frustrations that go along with living so close to an elementary school.”
On May 10, Lessin’s students took homemade tissue flowers and cards door to door, either handing them to a homeowner or leaving them on a doorknob. At one point, she reminded her students, “We are not picking other people flowers, we’re delivering flowers.”
A native of Santa Maria, Lessin graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 1971 with a degree in cultural anthropology, and later in the year married Robert Lessin.
She received her teaching credential from Cal State Long Beach in 1973 and was quickly placed in a kindergarten classroom at 52nd Street Elementary School in South L.A. “It was a half day and I had 30 students,” Lessin said. “That was when we had so many teachers that no one had a contract. We were all long-term substitutes.”
After becoming a third-grade teacher at Marvin Avenue Elementary, Lessin soon voluntarily returned to substituting. “It was one of the best things I could have done because I could see what different teachers were doing.”
Her last assignment before resigning to start a family was at Union Avenue as the Opportunity Room teacher during the 1975-76 school year. It was a remedial classroom, with first and second graders coming in and out. I helped them catch up.”
In the early ‘80s, the Lessins moved from Culver City to the Palisades (Robert was in the wholesale candy and sundry business). “I was at a Marquez PTA meeting, and they said they needed aides,” said Lessin, who has two children, Scott (36) and Michelle (33). “I told them I was available and that I had a teaching credential, too.”
A first-grade teacher threw her arms around Lessin and invited her into her classroom.
“I stayed in first grade,” Lessin said, noting that she likes that age because “they come in knowing so little and it’s satisfying to see the growth.”
What trends has she noticed in early education? “The trend now is to have kids, including first graders, read 50 percent fiction and 50 percent non-fiction. Fiction can be magical, and for first grade that’s important.”
She continued, “It seems that educational programs go from one extreme to another with no balance,” and cited an earlier reading program that emphasized whole language, which eschewed phonics, and now phonics is back. “People are always looking for something [in education] that’s a magical bullet and there isn’t one.”
Lessin also points out how “Kindergarten is now more like first grade used to be,” and that electronics have become increasingly prominent.  “Computers/iPads and the games excite students, but they don’t stop to smell the roses. If it doesn’t come quickly they don’t want anything to do with it.”
Her husband retired 16 years ago and Lessin is retiring to spend more time with him.
“I was tired of only being able to do things on a school schedule,” she said. “We just want to feel like if we want to drive up the coast, we don’t have to be back by Monday for school.”
Alumni are asked to drop off, e-mail or post letters or memories to add to Lessin’s memories folder in the school office (16821 Marquez Ave.) or e-mail fomcommuniations@marquezcharter.org. Additionally, donations may be made in Lessin’s name to Friends of Marquez to leave a legacy for the school.