Rob Hiaasen: To sir and ma'am with love
By Rob Hiaasen
| rhiaasen@capgaznews.com |
Jan 15, 2017 | 12:55 AM
After months of work, The Capital on Sunday launches its three-day school series "Class Struggle." Cindy Huang's reporting reveals Anne Arundel's most challenged schools get the least experienced teachers. Recommended reading, in my educated opinion.
Her stories made me stop and think about many things, including my favorite teachers.
Were they young, old, experienced, rookies? Were they loudly enthusiastic or quietly passionate about their vocation? Were they easy or tough, friendly or my friend, likable or irritable?
There was Ms. M., my Spanish teacher sophomore year in high school. We were, what, 16? She was, what, 22? (She was also very pretty, which is neither here nor there but was plenty here and there then.) She was tough. My friends and I swore she didn't smile until May. There's a saying in teaching for teachers: don't smile until after Christmas. Ms. M didn't smile until we were just about out for summer.
It was her first year teaching. Without knowing but guessing this, she had to establish credibility from the first moment she stepped into first period Spanish — especially after looking out over leering, reeking specimens of mainly sophomore boys. But here's what we did in that first moment together: We got to work. And we worked and learned as much Spanish as she could pack into one school year.
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Can't say I liked her class. Can't say I liked her. Can say I learned some Spanish.
I dropped by her classroom the next year, didn't have her again, just wanted to say hello. I expected to see Ms. M, but she had been body-snatched. The teacher who greeted me, hugged me, smiled at me, couldn't have been the same teacher we had the year before.
Then there was my English teacher, Mrs. C. I had her three years. I was lucky because reading Cindy's stories I know there are still kids who need and thrive on teacher continuity. They find a teacher who not only cares about them but recognizes a spark of talent in them. No exaggeration, this is life-changing. Then, because adult stuff happens, the teacher leaves the school. Does the spark go out or learn to self-ignite?
Mrs. C said to me the only words I wanted to hear then — words I still need to believe.
"You're a good writer."
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That's all it took. She became my audience of one. She remains my audience of one even after she passed away a few years ago. One of my first columns for The Capital was an appreciation for Mrs. C., a veteran teacher even in my day. I don't know if stipends or tenure or mentors kept her at our high school. I'd like to think she just loved teaching.
She wasn't stern, and she wasn't easy. She knew herself and knew what she was doing. I wish that on anybody.
Finally, there was Mrs. E in fourth-grade. She wasn't new, and she wasn't old. On the industry-standard "Ms. M Scale of Sternness," she got a 7 out of 10. She'd smile maybe at the end of the week but only after we earned it. Even though we were fourth graders, she set standards and expected us to meet them. That, and she read "Charlotte's Web" to the class. Come on, how great was that?
When I dropped by to visit her not one but three years later, Mrs. E. gave me the warmest smile.
And apologized for not remembering me.
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Rob Hiaasen is assistant editor of The Capital. He can be reached at rhiaasen@capgaznews.com.
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