You’re killin’ it ‘smalls’
LCMS librarian balances books, blocks with a passion for teaching and roller derby
Kimberly Lynch teaches at the Lake City Middle School library and as a captain at Hard Knox Roller Derby under the name “smalls.” (photo:Ben Pounds )
She works full time as the school’s library teacher.
But on the side, she’s part of Hard Knox Roller Derby.
A recent video series for the Tennessee Education Association allowed her to spotlight both roles.
She told The Courier News the two roles are “very different.”
Still, as a captain of the B team, she’s involved in teaching her teammates strategies, and leading them in drills. She said people could guess she’d been a teacher.
“I think the teaching hat is very hard to take off even in something like roller derby,” she said.
In roller derby, a team of five people skates on a track, although the full team includes others who might not be on the track at a given time.
Skaters earn points by passing the other team’s skaters, but others try to block them from going forward.
“For me the appeal is the fact that it does not matter what size you are, what body type, what athletic ability. even, you can be a part of this sport,” she said.
Small people, she said, can “juke around,” while big people can push more easily.
Lynch is 4-foot-9, meaning people don’t see her coming, allowing for both offensive and defensive advantages. As with other derby skaters, she uses a nickname, “smalls” styled as lowercase in her case.
“Might as well embrace it,” she said regarding her height and the name.
Lynch plays on a flat track rather than the elevated type of track often shown on television in the 1970s-’90s.
She said the sport is a challenge, but she views that positively.
“I’m not a naturally athletic person,” she said, describing herself as “nerdy” and a “theater kid.”
“It’s something that keeps me active and keeps me working, and I’m always learning and growing,” Lynch said.
Compared to her time on the derby track, she said her teaching at Lake City Middle School is “less chaotic.”
She said the biggest challenges don’t come from students or co-workers, but from testing mandates and changing state laws.
Lynch refers to herself as a “library teacher” rather than just a librarian, due to her role leading classes. She splits time between teaching creative writing, which helps with the state standardized tests the students take, and supervising independent reading and book projects.
“Trying to help kids love books and to help kids find books that can speak to them,” Lynch said, describing how she sees her role. “If you tell me that you’re not a reader, my response is ‘let me help you find a book that you like.’”
While she’s originally from Memphis Lynch said she has no desire to leave Rocky Top or Lake City Middle School.
“There’s something really special about Lake City kids,” she said. “They stand out in a way that I’ve always been proud of. They want to try their best no matter what their best looks like.”
Still, she said the skaters she teaches tend to have more drive than the middle school students.
“There’s more intense motivation with the skaters,” she said. “We all want to be there.”
Lynch said sometimes she has to create that motivation to learn with her students, and said the key is caring about them as people.
“Once people know how much you care about them, they’ll care about how much you know,” she said.
Lynch said that both as team captain and as library teacher, she enjoys seeing similar moments of discovery with her pupils.
“You have those lightbulb moments when something just clicks for somebody; you don’t always know when it’s going to happen, but it’s a lot of fun when it does,” she said.
For instance, she helped a skater effectively get lower and pop up into a hit on an opponent.
“It does help that I’m naturally lower than everyone!” she said.
A similar fun lightbulb moment happened with an LCMS student.
“While reading an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Fall of the House of Usher,’ one of my students picked up on some foreshadowing about a character’s fate, and it was hard to tell them to just wait and see what will happen,” she said.
