George McFarland ’72 retired last year from the Johnny Appleseed Elementary School in Leominster, but he still keeps a group photo of the students from his last class—his angels, he calls them—on the front of his refrigerator.

For McFarland, his retirement was especially poignant because he taught special needs students in a resource room. His kids were some of the most difficult ones to reach emotionally, yet were the ones who most needed the basic life and schooling skills special education can offer. His career was like a calling, McFarland said, one where he reaped his own rewards from knowing he was helping, in some small way, children trying to make it on the fringes of society.

None of those rewards, or the career, McFarland said, would have been possible with-out Dr. Katherine “Kay” Flynn ’57, ’02, pro-fessor emeritus of the Special Education Department at Fitchburg State.

“She changed my life for the better and I have no idea what I would have done otherwise,” McFarland said. “She prepared us so well that when I become a teacher I was confident the second I walked into the classroom. I’m not an academic scholar. I’m just an average kid at best and I understand where I fit in life. Yet when I walked into that classroom, I don’t care how bright some of my fellow students were, I was as ready as the rest of them. That’s because of Kay.”

Kay Flynn teaches at the former Edgerly Training School

Long before individualized education plans and classroom inclusion became the norm, the education department at Fitchburg State College recognized that special needs children of the state were woefully underserved. In 1953, the College developed the first teacher-prep program in the state for children who, at the time, were called mentally retarded or mentally handicapped.

The unique program combined coursework with practical, supervised field experiences for teacher candidates, which continues to this day. The program’s guiding philosophy is that all children have a right to education and to lessons and training that will help integrate them into mainstream society.

Fifty-eight years ago, however, this kind of thinking was the exception. Many families surrendered their special needs and disabled children to state and private institutions, some to be forgotten forever. To consider such children more than just trainable, but educable—and that teachers could be trained to educate them—was revolutionary, brave and bold.

To Kay Flynn, it was just common sense.

“People thought special needs students couldn’t really do reading and math. But I understood that these kids we called ‘educable’ were going to go out and earn a living so we needed to teach them what to do,” she said.

Flynn’s practical, frank approach to educating teacher candidates and her methodology for reaching special needs students has literally touched hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Fitchburg alumni. Many benefitted from her direct tutelage, others from her supervision or her influence in the development of the curriculum of the state’s premier program in special education teacher training.

From being a student in the infancy of the program, to classroom teaching, to leading Fitchburg’s program as a faculty member, for more than 50 years Flynn has dedicated her time and talents to educating children with special needs and to preparing teacher-candidates to teach children with special needs. Even in retirement, and now in her 90s, Flynn still supervises several teacher-candidates each semester. Those who were students or colleagues of hers, to a person, laud Flynn with praise and great respect. To them, Kay Flynn is special education at Fitchburg State.

Changing Perceptions

Flynn was one of the first graduates of the special education teacher program at the College, then led by professors William Goldman and Anne May. Like the program, Flynn was unique. Already a wife and mother when she came to Fitchburg, Flynn embraced learning and teaching and had an intuitive understanding of how to reach her students to help them excel.

After graduating, Flynn taught special needs students in Athol. Hers was a classroom chock-full of challenges, with 18 children from 6 to 14 years old, and a range of behaviors and learning abilities. Flynn continued graduate work while teaching in Athol and came face-to-face with the traditional perception of what special needs students could do while taking a developmental reading class.

“The teacher had no idea that special education kids could read. They just didn’t think they could. I said, yes they can and they do. Many people underestimate the mentally challenged student’s capacity for learning, social interaction and growth.”

Flynn brought several of her students to her graduate class to demonstrate the reading skills she had taught them. Her fellow graduate students and the professor were astonished. Flynn, of course, was not. She just taught her students with practical precision and a little ingenuity.

“It is much harder for special needs students because they don’t get it the first time, but you can be creative and innovative and you have to try,” she said. “When you try and are not afraid you discover that there is possibility.”

Flynn returned to Fitchburg in 1959 when she joined the teaching staff at the Edgerly Training school, at the time a public elementary school on the College campus. Student teachers received their training in the classroom under the watchful eyes of Flynn and other teacher-supervisors.

In 1966, when she joined the faculty of the Special Education Department at Fitchburg, Flynn’s common sense approach and belief in the capabilities of each individual became the foundation of the special education curriculum at the College.

“Kay had that kind of intense glow and intense focus that all children were able to learn well before it was fashionable to say all children can learn,” said Mary-Beth Fafard, senior education policy director at Brown University and former associate commissioner of special education for Massachusetts.

“Kay is a master teacher,” Fafard continued. “Any student she came into contact with she touched. And to this day, her passion about all of us being learners is what stayed with me. I have a hard time thinking about one of my graduate professors from Teachers College at Columbia who had the same impact.”

Like Fafard, a number of Flynn’s former students have gone on to make a difference in how special needs students are educated: Rick Lavoie ’72, author, lecturer and educator; Barbara Wilson ’80, creator of the Wilson Reading System; Robert Audette ’69, former associate commissioner of special education for Massachusetts; and Michael Fiorentino ’71, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Fitchburg State College and former chairman and professor in the College’s special education department.

Add the countless other Flynn alumni doing front-line work in classrooms and resource rooms across the state and beyond, and it becomes clear how profound her influence is.

A Teacher of Teachers

At the College, Flynn’s presence had a quiet formidability over the years, influencing many facets of life on the campus. She became president of the Alumni Association. She started the special education club, organized dances and productions pairing special needs students with student teachers, and was advisor to all special education major seniors.

Active in curriculumn development, the launching of the College’s intensive professional practicum program and institution- wide advancement of education, Flynn was a resource not just for teacher-trainees but for her faculty colleagues

Rosemarie Giovino and Kay Flynn

“Kay led by mixing theory and practice and active research,” said Rosemarie Giovino, director of the master’s in special education program and a colleague of Flynn’s for 29 years. “She’s a team player and able to put her thoughts across, respect what others say, but be firm when coming from a knowledge and an experience base.”

Dr. Elaine Francis, dean of education at Fitchburg State, is not just a faculty colleague of Flynn’s, but also one of her former students, graduating from the special education program in 1972.

“Kay taught future teachers how to critically think about their teaching long before ‘critical thinking’ was part of the educational jargon,” Francis said. “She was able to help teachers get into the minds of her students as she modeled the very best in teaching practices. The fact that she had a great sense of humor certainly helped. When I attend professional conferences and someone hears I am from Fitchburg State they ask, ‘How’s Mrs. Flynn—she’s the best!’ That opinion is unanimous.”

In 2003, Flynn was named professor emeritus. In their nomination letter, her colleagues recognized Flynn for her devoted work at the College, and in particular her ability to speak plainly about important topics, not just with students, but with everyone, calling her “clear and unbiased. Realistic and caring. Extraordinarily valuable.”

“You can’t be just book smart or just hands on,” Giovino said. “Kay knew that was the way to teach students and she did it intuitively. She was prepared academically but she was able to take that knowledge and teach young children and our students. Even now when she supervises practicum work, she is able to hone in on what the little children need and how the student-teacher can make that work.”

At the Feet of the Master

Two of Flynn’s most recent mentoring subjects are Stefanie Scaglione and Amanda Bell, both of whom just graduated in May. Flynn supervised them at the Crocker Elementary School in Fitchburg during their integrated professional practicums last spring.

“At first I was kind of scared,” Scaglioni admitted. “Mrs. Flynn had supervised Rick Lavoie and people like that. But she was great, always suggesting things in a really nice way. She is blunt and down to earth, but respectful and effective. Her way is to make you reflect on your teaching. Working with her was like having that proverbial light bulb go on. I saw and thought about things differently working with her.”

Scaglioni also happened to be the recipient of the scholarship in Flynn’s name, so having her supervise her practicum work was doubly rewarding.

In Bell’s second-grade resource classroom at Crocker, Flynn provided the same, to-the-point insights and direction for the young teacher.

“She is one of the people I would put on the ‘Absolutely Amazing’ list,” Bell said. “She knows so much about everything and yet she is very humble about her knowledge. Even on the first day there were things she observed that I hadn’t noticed and she automatically could say what would be helpful to a kid.”

As she had for decades, Flynn stressed a hands-on approach with Bell and Scaglioni, emphasizing the importance of knowing the individual needs of each student as intimately as knowing the support staff in schools, like the custodian, the kitchen staff and the bus drivers, all of whom are key to ensuring a successful school day for students with disabilities.

“You depend on these people to help you with these kids,” Flynn said. “It doesn’t matter what level you are at and that’s not a lesson plan you get from a college class or text.”

It’s the same type of advice she gave McFarland back in the 1970s.

“Special ed is good ed,” said Bell, reflecting on the lessons of her education and experience with Flynn. “All the techniques and things we learned can be applied to all people of all abilities in all walks of life.”

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