During her first stages of chemotherapy, Blue Creek Elementary teacher Jean Bassett knew she was going to start losing her hair. Nervous her students might become afraid of the changes, Bassett cut her long, curly hair short and walked into the classroom one day with her hair dyed blue. Another day, it was red.
“As she was really starting to lose her hair, she told the kids something like, ‘I want you to know that I’m going to lose my hair.’ … She went into the bathroom and came back out with a clown wig on and said, ‘And this is what it’s going to look like!’” said John Bassett, Jean’s husband. “She was always concerned about the kids … that’s just who she was.”
That courageous and unique style filtered into every aspect of her life as a mother, wife, teacher and friend. Described as easy going and always with a smile on her face, she firmly held onto her positive outlook on life while battling breast and brain cancer for almost three-and-a-half years until she died early Easter morning. She was 49.
Jean Bassett was born on in 1963 to Tom and Maryanne Gibbs and was one of seven children. She grew up in Menands and attended Catholic Central High School, where she met her soon-to-be-husband of 27 years.
“The two of us just connected,” John said.
Jean graduated with a degree in education from The College of Saint Rose, married her high school sweetheart and immediately began teaching at Livingston Middle School in Albany.
“She looked like one of the students, she was that young,” John said. “She was really small … most of the students were taller than her.”
After working at the school for several years, she took a few years off to spend time with her own three children, Amanda, Justin and Elena.
“She was a great mother and a great teacher that sort of played off of each other,” John said.
She couldn’t stay away from the educational world too long, however, and began teaching again, first at Watervliet’s Grow & Learn Playschool, then Shaker High School and then settling at Blue Creek teaching first and second grades.
“She loved teaching elementary school because she liked the little kids. She just loved nurturing. She was always a mom,” John said.
Shortly after getting into the Blue Creek classroom, Jean had to spice things up. She got rid of the individualized desks in rows and brought in small, round tables for the kids to sit in. That spontaneity continued throughout her 14 years at Blue Creek. A few weeks before the school year would start, Jean would have her new students come to the school for a “Playground Party” to get to know her and each other. Knowing that not all students enjoyed science, she helped start a “Discovery Fair” in lieu of science fair, where students could try out all different types of projects. She also helped create a community garden at the school where anyone could adopt a section to help keep it going strong.
“She was this incredibly warm person who was extraordinarily creative, compassionate and really knew how to bring out the best in kids – both academically and that social, emotional piece. That was a very nurturing environment that really inspired the academic and personal growth,” Blue Creek Principal Annette Trapini said. “The kids thrived in the place where they knew they were appreciated as human beings, as well as students, and within each other.”
Things were much the same outside of work. Jean was a Girl Scout leader, softball and soccer coach and helped out with the school plays. She started an Earth Day cleanup in Menands and her daughter Amanda, who followed her mother’s footsteps as an elementary school teacher, said it was easy for her to get other people involved in activities.
“I consider her a celebrity,” John said. “Not in the kind of way everybody thinks of a celebrity, but to me, she’s somebody that celebrated life. But she’s also the kind of person that everybody wanted to be around, just like a celebrity.”
During her treatment, Jean Bassett used the motto “Focus on the Positive,” which she adopted from the late Blue Creek student Benjamin Stowell who passed away from cancer in 2009. As a devoted Bruce Springsteen fan, she also preached songs like “No Surrender” and “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day.”
She continued to teach while going through treatment until the fall of 2012.
“She declared herself an ‘optimalistic.’ She was optimistic she would heal, but she was realistic about the outcome,” John said.
Only a few days before she passed, more than 60 students, parents and teachers showed up on The Bassetts’ deck and driveway, singing songs and spreading messages of love.
“That to me showed what she meant to the kids and the school and her colleagues,” John said.
As handwritten cards continue to pour into their home from all the lives Jean Bassett touched, Amanda Bassett said she’s not worried about keeping her mother’s legacy alive.
“I think she did that with everything that she was involved in that’s still going. I don’t think we have to do very much,” she said.