Teachers good and bad

Please don't use real names, to protect the innocent--if a bad review. Although most of them are now passed, there might be some relatives on LT.

They did not have kindergarten way back when I started school, no trouble, I could read from the King James Bible when I was 4. I went to first grade at age 5 1/2--no problems. I dearly loved my teacher, Miss Moody. Miss Moody taught both my mother and father and brother and sister! In fact, she taught about 37 people in my extended family. She gave me special books to read--more advanced. She only stumped me with one word--quack!

The not so good--my 6th grade teacher---so grumpy, never a smile.

All in all, my teachers were a great lot. I wanted to be a teacher since I was 5, and not a one of them dissuaded me or gave me cause for second thoughts.

I was a directionless thrill-seeker my last year in high school. My senior English teacher had a unit on the history of the English language and gave us the story of Chaunticleer with modern English on one side and Middle English on the other. She saw I was interested in it and told me there were a lot more stories in the Canterbury Tales, some of them awfully dirty, but she only had a copy in Middle English, and I would have to trick it all out for myself.

Well, I fell for it because I always enjoyed a challenge as much as I liked flouting authority. So in detention for smoking in the girls bathroom and not representing our school nicely at a Spiro Agnew rally, I worked out what all was going on with Hendy Nicholas and Symkyn.

That teacher died of a brain tumor the year after I graduated high school, but I try to say a rosary for her every June around the anniversary of graduation day.

I had a number of very good teachers all through my years of schooling.

Here's one.

Mr. R – 5th grade advanced reading teacher.

I’ve always liked to read and, although I didn’t know it, by the time I hit 4th grade I was reading way above my level. The problem was I just liked to read – I did a terrible job of writing and handing in book reports – which meant my grades were, shall we say, not exactly stellar. In 5th grade I was assigned to Mr. R's class just for the reading.

I don’t remember when it was Mr. R decided to do something about my reading and not reporting but I do remember the first time he put his plan into action. It was the quiet reading time part of the class. I was sitting at my desk, which was towards the back of the first row facing the door, reading a science fiction novel I had checked out from the local public library (I don’t remember the title but I know it was one of the John C. Winston science fiction books) and I was just about finished with it.

Mr. R came up to my desk and asked me about the book. I know I unloaded (I liked to talk then and still do). He heard me out and then casually asked to see the book. I gave it to him. He looked it over and said, “This looks like a very interesting book…but, you know, it’s written at a 4th grade level.” Boy, did he ever have MY attention! 4th Grade!!!! That was last year! He was carrying another book with him and he gave it to me. It was The Three Musketeers and he said, “This is a pretty good adventure, it’s considered a classic, and it is written at a high school level.” Well, he had me and I’m sure he knew it.

I finished the SF book and plowed into The Three Musketeers. What I know now as an adult was he just kept his eye on me and where I was in the book. When it looked like I was about finished with The Three Musketeers he came over to my desk and asked me if I liked it and what I thought about it. I thought it was great and again I unloaded. He nodded and then presented me with another book whose name I’ve forgotten. As before he emphasized the high school level of the read, the fact that it was a classic, and that I might find it interesting…and that was his way of getting me to do the work – my descriptions of the books were my book reports.

The takeaway – I don’t recall how many classics I read nor do I recall all of the titles but I do know, except for science fiction, from the 5th to at least the 11th grade, if a book was fiction it had to be considered a classic – I simply refused to read anything of lesser stature.

In grade eight we had a weekly scripture class, taught by our form teacher and for which we had these silly bowdlerized student Bibles. Mr Lister was not a religious man, so after a month or so of trying to interest us (and himself, I suppose) he began to read to us instead bits from Scientific American that caught his attention.

One week, on scripture lesson day, Mr Lister was ill and in his place a British by-the-rules staff member filled in. "What passage are you studying with your Form Master?" he asked. "Oh," we chorused happily, "we don't read the Bible in scripture class. We read Scientific American!" So that ended the informal science lessons.

Sixty years on, I remember nothing of the scripture passages, but I still remember learning for the first time about interferon, demonstrations of Edwin Land's theory of colour, and the gyroscopic principle.

Near the end of my teaching career, Mr Lister's son did a practice teaching session at my school. I had no idea who he was, but in chatting I was able to put enough clues together to make the connection. He was delighted by my story. "Sounds like my Dad," he responded. So I was able to send some belated appreciation to my grade eight teacher who spent his last years in Germany sailing on the Baltic.

>4 alco261: Cool story! In one of my teacher education courses (way back in the early 70's), we were taught that in about the 4th grade (age 9-10), the very good readers would rise to the top and begin to read adult books. I found this to be true, in general. Glad your teacher was able to bring you into that era!

In high school I had an English teacher that I always got on well with, and who introduced me to poetry (in particular to G M Hopkins, and I can still recite quite a bit of "The Windhover" 50+ years later). I left high school in 1966, but when my mother died in 1993 Mrs Neilson unexpectedly showed up at her funeral. She told me then something that, hand on heart, I would never have expected: when she was marking a stack of our essays, and knew that there was one of mine in there, she would put it at the bottom so that she knew there would be something worth reading at the end. Bless you, Mrs N.

>7 haydninvienna: Bless you for writing something worth reading! Having read college papers for 30 years, I know you gave as good as you got!

>8 nohrt4me2: Thank you.