Before her students would take a test or quiz, former Boston public school teacher Elena Rivas would make a hundred cascarones, a tradition in her native Mexico where eggs are emptied and filled with confetti.
When the exams were over, the children would celebrate, cracking the eggs over their heads, filling the room with laughter as colorful confetti whirled around them.
They loved it.
That’s the kind of teacher Elena was, her daughter, Carmen Zilles told me. Elena spent nearly 30 years working at Boston’s public schools, most of that time at Dorchester’s Russell Elementary School, where she taught second- and third-graders.