Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Hard News: The Names We Remember


Chances are the names you recall are either those of teachers you remember fondly or the other ones...not so much.

Miss Grey wore her face in a scowl and her faded hair in a tight bun. She paced the rows of our fourth-grade desks slamming a pointer stick into her hand and offering quips like "Does a plumber go to work without his tools?"

Beats me. My mom says we can't afford a plumber and my dad has to fix the sink.

Miss Grey wasn't big on jokes.

Mrs. Woolcomb dressed in a mini-skirt and crossed her long legs, one over another, ON TOP of her desk and read us the lyrics from Leonard Cohen's songbook.

Mrs. Woolcomb offered counsel on how a thirteen-year-old could heal a heart smashed into smithereens after a first crush. She was super-cool and we all wanted to be her.

The L.A. Times has unleashed a vigorous conversation regarding test scores and how teachers are to be judged. I think writer Sue Horton's commentary is worth a look:

There's teaching, and there's learning (Sue Horton, LA Times)

2 comments:

  1. Mrs. Hagey. Grade 7 & 8. Red lips, pony tailed hair, pencil skirt. She knew I wrote poetry during our morning math period. In the afternoon, during english, she asked me to stand up a read my poems. She told the class that someday I'd be a writer. She made an example of me to let me know she believed in me. I wish she had lived to know that I became a writer. She is included in the acknowledgments in my book...

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