Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.
― The Way of Kings
My first twelve years of school I enjoyed a multitude of kind and caring and effective teachers. One of my favorite educators, Mrs. B., was quite a lady. She taught my mother in the 1940s and by the time my brother and I began high school, she was part and parcel of the experience. Mrs. B. always dressed to the nines; she was a great communicator and she had a mind like a steel trap. She and Violet Crawley would have had magnificent conversations.
Anyway, since Mrs. B. taught multiple branches of math, she was my algebra teacher the year before I endured her geometry class. As I did quite well in the former, she may have been surprised by my limited ability in the latter, but we won’t linger on her disappointment.
One day in class Mrs. B. asked for volunteers to answer questions about the day’s lesson, per usual. I admit that I surprised myself–and likely others–when I raised my hand to answer. As I recall, only two of us took the challenge, but that memory may be flawed due to decay theory. In any case, the other classmate with a raised hand was John, our valedictorian a few short years later.
John was (and is) a heck of a nice guy with an amazing brain. I was pumped! I was finally able to answer a question in geometry class! In a class where John was sitting. Whoa. But here’s how it went:
Mrs. B. calls on Gayle to respond, though John was the normal go-to. Guess she thought she’d give someone else a chance.
Gayle attempts to speak, but has difficulty.
Mrs. B. says (and you’re going to have to supply a Dolly Parton accent in your head): “Gayle, is that a jaw breaker in your mouth?”
Gayle, aghast, chokes out, “Yes, ma’am. Do you want me to spit it out?”
Mrs. B., with no apparent anger responds, “Oh, no, wrap it up for later, by all means. Before long y’all will be bringing chicken salad sandwiches and lemonade into my classroom!”
Sigh. I don’t recall whether I ever got to answer the geometry question, but kudos to her for allowing me the opportunity.
Way on the other side of the favorite educator spectrum was an English teacher, Mrs. R. Decades after that school year, I still firmly believe she had a few deep-seated issues, some of which caused her to become overwrought with no good reason. I also believe that those should have been addressed before she was turned loose to impact young minds. In spite of those limitations, she taught her subject quite well. Her problem was that she took herself too seriously and was far too emotional to be interacting with any teenagers, and certainly not those who weren’t her own.
Mrs. R. brooked no unsolicited feedback and did not hesitate to correct people in front of the entire class. That, and she exhibited a fair amount of malicious glee when students failed to achieve perfection. Before I go further, I want to be clear that I was not a common target. However, there was one memorable, gut-wrenching occasion.
My sophomore English mid-term exam result was much lower than I expected. Since I needed to maintain Beta Club eligibility, my grades couldn’t drop below a high B, as I recall. The day after scores were posted, Mrs. R. began class by asking who would like to discuss their exam scores. I wanted to have that little chat in the worst way. No one else took the bait, if memory serves.
Turned out that during the exam I paraphrased two poems instead of just the one the instructions dictated. Big deal, you say? Yes, that’s what I thought, but she took that as an act of disobedience and deducted 15 points. In truth, I didn’t read the instructions clearly enough. Even if I had, I would not have imagined that a teacher would penalize me for doing more. Perhaps I deserved exactly what I got. Maybe she was spiteful. Maybe I was cocky.
Still, I should have seen it coming. If I hadn’t been so sure of my ability [near-stellar] in English class, the incident wouldn’t have been so painful. And in geometry class, if I hadn’t been so excited about answering a geometry question [for once], I might have remembered I had a 3/4″ orb melting in my mouth. I’m still learning to keep my confidence level and my bead on reality in close proximity to one another.
You ?
