Dean Wellman stands at the front of the classroom. His tall frame towers over the small desks and the fourth grade students who occupy them.

Mr. Wellman holds a teacher’s guide in his hands as he leads the class through a geometry lesson on his first day back as a full-time teacher at Congin Elementary School in Westbrook.

“I’ve been dreaming about this day for 11 and a half plus months … but, I still feel like a student teacher,” Dean said. While he was in Iraq, Dean enjoyed reading a book on teaching strategies.

“But, then it started getting depressing … I’m still a month away from this,” he told himself. He worked to improve his teaching style by teaching a class on Ramadan to fellow soldiers.

As a sergeant in the Maine Army National Guard, Dean left his teaching job in the middle of the 2003-2004 school year when he was activated and deployed to Iraq with the 133rd Engineer Battalion. Dean returned with his unit in early March to a cheering crowd at Westbrook High School. At the homecoming celebration were many of his fellow teachers and former students there to welcome him home.

In the classroom at Congin Elementary the students play with colorful geometric shapes as Mr. Wellman refers to the teacher’s book in his hands that guides him through the new math curriculum that was put in place while he was deployed. In addition to returning to his home in Scarborough, a wife and 14-month-old child, he returns to a job, but with a new classroom, new textbooks and new curriculums in social studies and math.

“Can anyone tell me what shape the red block is,” asked Mr. Wellman.

“Trapezoid,” one student answered. “No, it’s not a trapezoid,” Mr. Wellman said, “good try.” The teacher who was in Iraq two months ago looked down at his book and immediately realized his mistake.

“I’m sorry, you were right, that is a trapezoid,” Mr. Wellman said with a slight bit of embarrassment.

“It’s just one more new thing,” Dean said about the math curriculum after his class had finished the geometry lesson and headed to gym class with Abbey Slaugenhoup, the long-term sub who has been teaching the class since September. The district has agreed to pay both teachers to stay in the classroom together for three days.

“The transition’s been very tough,” Abbey said. “He gets a little frustrated sometimes, but he’s getting right back into it.”

“One of the things I kind of forgot,” Dean said, “was that (in the classroom) you’re juggling many things all at once. … It’s not like the military.”

Mr. Wellman had been visiting the classroom for a couple weeks, team teaching and getting to know the students. These students were third-graders when Mr. Wellman was deployed. Some students had never met him before, but all were aware they had a teacher in Iraq. A color photograph of Mr. Wellman in desert camouflage, standing along a building in Iraq, hangs next to the dry-erase board.

“I had his picture hanging so he’d be in their thoughts,” said Abbey. Besides the picture there are no signs in the classroom of Mr. Wellman’s year-long sabbatical to a war zone. The administration thought it best if the current class had limited contact with Mr. Wellman, because they were afraid Ms. Slaugenhoup’s authority would be undermined if the students viewed her as only a substitute.

Abbey and Dean traded e-mails occasionally, and Abbey would occasionally read them to the class. On Veterans’ Day everyone in the class signed a poster and sent it to Mr. Wellman. He took a picture of himself with the poster and sent it back.

“They knew he existed, it’s not like he came in as a stranger,” said Abbey.

During morning meetings all fourth grade students gather and say the pledge of allegiance. Sometimes at the end Mrs. Connor would have the students take a moment of silence to send good thoughts to their absent teacher

“I think they really look up to him,” said Abbey. “A lot of the boys idolize him.”

After gym class Mr. Wellman gathers the students in a circle around the small sitting area. He stands above them with a short-cropped haircut, boyish face and hands in his pockets.

“I’m going to tell you a little bit about myself,” Mr. Wellman said. “Then, I’m going to tell you about my experience in Iraq and let you ask any questions you might have, as long as they’re appropriate.”

Mr. Wellman began telling his students about his childhood growing up in Westbrook. Mr. Wellman even had the same third-grade teacher as some of his current students. He joined the Maine Army National Guard when he was 17 years old, not even a high school graduate yet.

When Dean got his current job at Congin Elementary he replaced his old fourth grade teacher. Last year he was deployed to Iraq and had to leave his wife, newborn son and teaching job. Mr. Wellman took advantage of the opportunity for a social studies lesson.

“Who knows which continent Iraq is on?” he asked his class.

“I think it’s Asia,” Matt Dickson said after being called on.

When Mr. Wellman opens the floor for questions he knows what to expect. The first question is usually something about shooting a gun, and today would be no different.

“Did you carry weapons around?” a boy asked.

“Yes,” Mr. Wellman nodded.

Other questions followed, some more appropriate than others:

“Were there any bombings where you were?”

“Did you get to drive a tank?”

“Did they sell Mountain Dew over there?”

“Were there big bugs over there?”

“What did it look like in Iraq?”

A few students bring up fathers, uncles and grandfathers who were in the military or fought in a war.

When one student said how cool it would be if you offered an Iraqi a soda and then blew him away with your gun, Mr. Wellman calmly explained that there were a lot of good, friendly Iraqis.

“I don’t want you to think all Iraqis are bad,” Mr. Wellman said.

As the conversation went on tangents about bugs and soda, an occasional thoughtful question arose.

“When you carried your gun,” asked Allison Ledoux “… did you take time to look at their faces to see if they were scared?”

Americans carrying guns are so common in Iraq, Mr. Wellman explained, that the Iraqis accept it as normal.

Dean Wellman answers questions from students on his first day back at Congin Elementary School in Westbrook.Dean Wellman answers questions from students on his first day back at Congin Elementary School in Westbrook.