Columbia Middle School teacher Mark Tullis retired at the close of the 2023-24 academic year, marking the end of a 34-year-long career full of pranks, performance and improvement for both his students and colleagues.

Tullis was born and raised in the eastern Illinois town of Fairfield and, as he recalled, always had an interest in teaching.

He had teachers on both sides of the family. Particularly impactful, his paternal grandmother was a one-room schoolteacher, and he would occasionally visit her school or house  and play with the tremendous amount of classroom materials she had.

After attending Eastern Illinois University, Tullis began working as a paraprofessional at his old grade school. After about half a year, he was lucky enough to find a job elsewhere with just two interviews.

Though he first interviewed in Carbondale, Tullis recalled that the district seemed to have already decided on an in-house teacher to fill the position he had applied for.

The subsequent interview wound up leading to a rather long-term career.

“Columbia was my second interview, and they called me after the interview two or three days later and told me I had a third grade teaching position,” Tullis said. “And that’s what brought me to Columbia.”

Tullis spoke about his beginnings in the Columbia school district, starting out as a third grade teacher in the unit building – now known as Eagleview Elementary – which housed the grade school.

After some time, Parkview Elementary was rehabbed to serve as a K-2 building. A further expansion in 2000 which also saw the addition of a basement had him moving there.

He continued to teach third grade for 17 years, then headed down to the basement to teach fourth grade for six years.

The past 10 years have seen Tullis at Columbia Middle School teaching fifth grade, though he has also occasionally jumped in to teach seventh grade geography along with some computer and math classes.

Additionally, Tullis served briefly as Columbia High School drama advisor before having children himself.

Regarding the past decade, Tullis said he has mostly taught English language arts and social studies – the latter subject he has a distinct passion for.

“Social studies in fifth grade was primarily history, which is what I’ve always loved the most,” Tullis said. “If I could go back to the beginning of my career, I would have gotten enough credentials to teach middle school history. I would like to have done that, but at the time I didn’t want to think I wanted to teach older kids.”

Looking back on his career, Tullis joked about the many pros and cons of being a teacher, though perhaps his biggest overall takeaway from his career is that those who don’t teach simply don’t understand what it’s like.

“When I started teaching, I enjoyed kids,” Tullis said. “I liked being around kids, and they were fun to be around. I never knew how hard teaching was until I got in there, and no one – I don’t care who you are –  nobody knows how difficult it is. I kind of gave up trying to convince people and teach people how hard of a job it was.”

Still, there have been plenty of positive aspects of the job he has enjoyed, particularly regarding his love of working with children.

He spoke fondly about serving as a teacher for this long and being able to interact with the adults he previously taught, hearing their recollections of his classes and what they meant.

The day-to-day of teaching small children, however, has been a blessing all throughout his career.

“There are such significant rewards, and of course they’re not monetary or anything like that,” Tullis said. “Just daily things like seeing a child get it, struggle with something and then all of a sudden that light bulb comes on.”

There is, of course, plenty Tullis said he could have done with less of over the years, with troublesome small-town politics proving difficult as a teacher.

He further expressed his curiosity about what schools would be like if those running things had taught for a decade before taking the reins.

Along with the benefits and struggles of teaching, Tullis spoke about some of the more general changes he’s seen in his three decades of education.

One of the more substantial changes Tullis mentioned was the back and forth he’s witnessed when it comes to the reading curriculum, first emphasizing teaching language through reading, then focusing more on phonics and structure before more recently placing the emphasis again on reading.

Tullis also mentioned how families have come to taking vacations in the middle of the school year when that was previously unheard of.

Additionally, parenting over the years changed very little in Tullis’ eyes. As he said, he could really notice how much a little care and attention from parents could help students thrive, though he was less enthusiastic about the helicopter parents he’s worked with.

As Tullis has been looking back on his career over the past few weeks, so have many of his coworkers, who offered they’re thoughts on him.

CMS Spanish teacher Carleigh Ottwell described Tullis as “an agent of chaos,” recalling an incident where he signed someone else up to bring Chick-fil-A for the entire school only for folks to find little more than a few bags of chips and cookies in the teacher’s lounge.

CMS art teacher Tammy Fulte, in a district retirement celebration, offered a shining overview of Tullis and his time in the district.

While she also touched on his track record as a prankster, she also spoke to the effect that he has had on students throughout his career, keeping things entertaining, instructional and creative for those in his classes.

“Thank you Mr. Tullis for being an amazing, creative teacher for decades and decades,” Fulte said. “Your high standards for yourself and your students, your ability to be tough and caring at the same time and your leadership have been an inspiration to many of us. You have affected so many lives.”

Karen Dent, who retired from Parkview Elementary last year, spoke about Tullis primarily as an entertainer and storyteller.

She described a particular anecdote in which she visited his room as he was reading a story to his students, only to be enthralled herself by the energy he brought to the narration and the many character voices.

“He was just really good at bringing a story to life for kids, and that’s the master of teaching right there is holding them and getting them into what you’re doing, and he’s so good at that,” Dent said.

Looking back himself, Tullis said that while he’s distinctly interested in occupying himself elsewhere, he will certainly miss working with his students.

“I think, really, what I’m going to miss is just interacting with kids, laughing with them, enjoying their little idiosyncracies,” Tullis said. “The older I got and the more kids I had at home – I have four kids of my own – the more I experienced my own children, the more I enjoyed my students and the more I was able to see what they were going through. I think I’m going to miss just experiencing childhood.”

With his time now, he hopes to work on his family’s house, do some traveling with his wife and dedicate more time to his organizing company Efficient Interiors.

Tullis, who has served as a longtime weekly columnist for the Republic-Times, offered some words of advice for new teachers, stressing, in particular, self care, making time for family and not focusing too much on time where you feel you’ve messed up.

He also recommended taking care of every kind sentiment and gift students, parents and colleagues might share with you.

“I would say self care and don’t be too hard on yourself,” Tullis said. “Make sure you keep those notes from kids that are encouraging and those cards from parents and colleagues that you can always open a drawer and look at those.”