PROFILES

Elise R. Schweich
FOUNDER

On the lapel of her smart black blazer Miss Leesy wears a golden bumble bee: a humble, productive pollinator whose legendary ability to move from flower to flower accounts for the vast multiplicity of life on earth. It is just about impossible to resist likening the work of the bumble bee to that of Elise R. Schweich, the founder of Springboard to Learning who was known to her students as Miss Leesy.

A former Kansas City public school teacher, Mrs. Schweich was also a traveler and adventure seeker. With her husband, businessman Joseph Schweich, she rode camels in Egypt, climbed the acropolis in Greece, watched shadow puppet shows in Bali, and fished for marlin off the Florida Keys. A desire to share these treasures with St. Louis Public School children gave her the initial idea for Springboard. She designed her first lesson, delivered in 1965, around her Florida catch. “It sounds so goofy,” Mrs. Schweich says today. “But it came to me that this sort of enrichment simply didn't exist anywhere. I was so fortunate to be able to bring them something new. We used that fish to talk about biology - the fins, the tail, the mouth, the scales. And we used it to talk about geography, and sport fishing, and other subjects. I tried to tie my lesson into what the class was studying, but whether or not I could, the classroom teachers were always happy to see me. And the children welcomed me with cheers!”

A petite, wide-eyed, energetic, 95-year-old with a stylish white bob and ready smile, Mrs. Schweich still recalls the respect with which the students handled the artifacts she’d gleaned from the wide world. “We always talked about how careful we have to be with these things, and how much I had been looking forward to sharing them. It was as if the children were helping me to take care of the artifacts. They were very receptive to the things they had never experienced before.”

A copper vessel used by pioneers for warming their feet on transcontinental journeys was especially interesting, Mrs. Schweich remembers. She would fill the vessel with scalding water to show the students just how much heat it conducted. Eventually, word got around St. Louis that Elise Schweich was up to something good in the public schools. “A number of people saw what I was doing, or heard about what I was doing, and jumped on the bandwagon,” Mrs. Schweich says.

A board was formed, more teachers signed on, and the program was launched. The walls of Mrs. Schweich’s office are covered with testaments to her public and private accomplishments: a letter of gratitude from a former Missouri governor, a proclamation of appreciation from the state house, photographs of her on her travels, images of her son, her daughter, her four grandchildren, and six great grandchildren.

Once there was a teacher who went into a school carrying a fish. Today there are more than 60 teachers who go into schools carrying drums, beakers, Japanese fans, fresh pencils and paper, sponges, beads, coins, photographs, paints, sea shells, feathers, masks, and all the wealth of stories and information and empathy they carry in their hearts. From one came many, as happens with flowers lucky enough to have a bee around.