"Number one, 'marathon.' The runner prepared for the long marathon. 'Marathon.'"

After a few steps between rows of desks, the gray-haired teacher on this last day of regular class for eighth-graders continues in a soft but strong voice:

"Thermos.' She brought hot soup in a thermos bottle. 'Thermos.' 'Hydroplane.' The hydroplane skimmed over the ocean. 'Hydroplane.'"

Kathy Rausch, 65, has run her own marathon at Guardian Angel School in Pacoima. For 34 years she has walked between school desks at the little parochial school, which is literally surrounded on three sides by the San Fernando Gardens housing project. For 34 years she's had the eighth grade homeroom, and taught junior high kids math, religion, language arts and other subjects.

She has seen eight principals come and go, and has taught some 1,000 students --- adolescents like the 24 eighth-graders in front of her today.

After the spelling quiz, she tells her last class they have two finals to take this morning --- math and English. Then she starts passing out the former comprehensive exam with a select sample of equations.

"Let's put forth our very best effort on this," she urges. "It's important. You must pass the test because it's one of your requirements for graduation. So just say a little prayer to the Holy Spirit, so the Holy Spirit will help you to remember all the things that we've learned and you've studied. And you'll do just fine."

A real struggle
Rausch has done just fine at Guardian Angel since she arrived in August of 1971, after teaching for a dozen years in Seattle and Portland, even though she had never worked with African American kids, who then made up most of the student body. She looks back fondly at that time, when families were made up mostly of two parents and only one of them worked.

Today's households are different, and, as a result, teaching has become a whole new ballgame. With dad and mom usually both working to make ends meet, they're not involved as much in school activities. Even more important, parents are often too harried and tired to help out with homework and school projects.

"You don't have the same kind of parent support that we used to get," she says. "So you see a real difference in their kids' academics, too, and even in their attitudes. It doesn't seem that education is so important to them. It's a real struggle a lot of times to get the kids to do their homework, to really apply themselves, to really care about what kind of grades they get.

"It's so much harder to motivate kids today because kids are so used to playing games and being entertained. Years ago, before we had so many movies and DVDs and video games, kids would read a book and they would take a journey with their book. Now they don't want to read; it's 'Let's watch the movie.'"

All this makes a modern-day teacher's job harder, what Rausch even calls a "struggle." She has told other teachers she's glad her career is ending instead of beginning.

But then the veteran teacher adds there are strategies that have worked for her in recent years to motivate kids. She tries to find things adolescents today are interested in and she can build on in class.

"I just talk to my kids all the time about how important it is to develop our full person --- our education and our faith," she says. "You just try to be really positive and encouraging, and let them know that they are smart and they can do it. If you give them enough expectations, they come up to them. But it's a struggle.

"Being fair with the kids is a big thing, too. If the kids know that you're fair, they'll accept anything you tell them. I try to make sure that I include everybody in the class. I call on everybody throughout the day. The kids know that you're not just going to have favorites and pick their names to do everything. It makes them feel good about themselves."

'Tough but supportive'
"She's a wonderful teacher," says Ruben Cortez, Guardian Angel's principal the last six years. "She's real caring and supportive of the kids. She has high expectations, but she's so supportive and she then helps the kids to meet those expectations. I think she's tough with them, but not one kid thinks that she doesn't care about them."

When Cortez came to Guardian Angel, he was concerned that the veteran teacher might be so set in her ways that she'd resist any changes he wanted to make. But he was pleasantly surprised at her openness to try new things. And he's marveled at her steadfast dedication.

"It's amazing nowadays for any teacher to be at one school for 34 years," he says. "But it's not a job for her. It's really her ministry. I don't think we're going to see teachers like her anymore who stay in one place that long. Whenever I meet people who have gone to Guardian Angel, the first question is always: 'Is Miss Rausch still there?'"

Junior high fan
When people find out she's been teaching junior high kids for more than 30 years, their response is often, "Oh, you poor thing." But Rausch has found just the opposite. She swears that sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders are the "greatest kids" in the world.

Why? Because she can have a genuine conversation with them. Plus, they're open and honest. "I wouldn't change it for anything," she says.

She's never thought about teaching the lower grades, where she started, or moving up to high school. And three times she has turned down the principal's job at Guardian Angel, even though she's also served as the school's vice principal for years.

"I want to be with the kids," Rausch says matter-of-factly. "That's who I am. I know there's more money in administration. But money's not the only thing, you know."

When asked why she taught in Catholic schools for 46 years here as well as in the northwest, she gives another no-nonsense answer:

"Because I believe in Catholic education. I believe that in order to develop the whole child, you have to be able to develop the religious side of them. Their faith. It's not just academics. And you can't do that in public school."

The kids have been her mainstay --- her bedrock joy --- all this time. She admits there have been days when she got up in the morning feeling tired to the bone. But after dragging herself to Guardian Angel and starting class, the kids sitting in those desks just "energized" her, and she forgot about being beat.

Single, she has planned for some time to retire at 65. Problems with arteries make it hard for her to stand for long periods. She wants to pursue her passion for poker, playing in more tournaments, and also travel to places like Scandinavia and Germany, where her parents' relatives are from.

"You feel happy about retiring, but at the same time, you know, there's a little sadness to it because you're ending a part of your life," Rausch muses. "I mean, I've spent over half my life here at Guardian Angel School. And when you think that I'll be finished here soon, it's hard to even believe that I'm doing this.

"But it is time," she concedes. "And I think that every person recognizes when is the time to step down and let somebody else take over. So I feel good about it."

Kathy Rausch also feels good about the lives she's touched at the little parochial school in Pacoima. She recalls an African American girl she had in eighth grade the year she came to Guardian Angel. Her name was Carmel, and according to her teacher, had a chip on her shoulder "heavier than a brick."

Years later, she got a letter from the student, who had graduated from Harvard. Carmel thanked her for the creative writing class she taught and wrote how it gave her the idea to go to college and become a journalist.

"So that was like, wow!" Rausch says, smiling and shaking her head. "You think, 'Well, thank God, I at least got one of them.'"