School Daze #1

Since I've been teaching this past month, it has put me in mind of all my teachers:

Kindergarten - Mrs. Glass. . . I remember I was in Room 10, which I didn't like because all the rooms had colors assigned to them, and ours was brown. My only specific memory of Mrs. Glass, though, is that she once asked me to recite the days of the week, and I did it so rapidly that she called me "Speedy Gonzalez." As for Kindergarten, we worked on a different letter of the alphabet each week. We had these little workbooks, and the letter was on the front in glitter. . . I found it vastly boring. The best part was that on Fridays we got to pick colored clothespins and go to other rooms for different activities. The blue room was my favorite because that was art.

First Grade - Mrs. Knorred. . . First grade is a jumble of memories for me. A friend from Poland named Basha, CCD, and each week one student got to bring in a record to share. Most of my classmates brought various Disney soundtracks. I brought Fats Domino. My mother ran into Mrs. Knorred a while back, who, when she heard my mother's name, actually remembered me! (Then again, my maiden name is rather unique.)

Second Grade - Miss Babicki. . . I thought Miss Babicki was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was engaged to be married, I think? She had dark, curly hair and big blue eyes. She was the one who encouraged me to write. Fridays were writing days in her classroom.

Third Grade - Mrs. Rodriguez. . . She was the one to figure out I needed glasses when I failed a math test that had been written on the board and Mrs. Rodriguez figured out that it wasn't that I couldn't do the math, it was that I couldn't see the math! All the girls made it a habit to hug Mrs. Rodriguez at the end of each school day; kids probably couldn't get away with that now. Lots of "no touching" policies and whatnot.

Fourth Grade - Mrs. Cox. . . Our first year at the middle school. All I really remember, though, is Andrew Andresen. He was a classmate of mine, and he sat in my bus line with me and would draw pictures of the houses he was going to build for me when we were grown up and he became an architect. I also remember that his birthday was April 1st. Isn't it weird what we remember? As for Mrs. Cox, I actually don't remember much about her at all except that we did poetry journals in her class.

Fifth Grade - Mr. Brown. . . My first male teacher! And he made quite an impact on me. He was one of those teachers who knows a lot of interesting, trivial things. Also, he wasn't adverse to chucking science or history for an afternoon so that he could teach us to draw or teach us some Japanese. I had once left a drawing of a horse on my desk, and when I came back, Mr. Brown had drawn a cowboy on it! He also once let me teach the history class.

Sixth Grade - Miss Fuller. . . We had moved, and sixth grade was the year I was in a private Christian school. Fifth and sixth grade was in one room; there were only 11 of us total. Miss Fuller was great. Beverly Geraldine Fuller was her full name, and I thought it was just the prettiest name! She gave me end-of-the-year awards for Science and Thoroughness. But my most vivid memories of sixth grade are (1) having a huge crush on a guy named Joel, and (2) reading Watership Down and then convincing the class to play it at recess. (I was Hazel-Rah, natch.)

After sixth grade, I went to the public middle school and we had lots of teachers because we changed classes. I remember Mrs. Grimes as the home ec teacher, and Mrs. Atkins as the English teacher. . . Coach Roberts was my Earth Science teacher. . . I didn't like Mrs. Smithen (the math teacher). I was an office aide. . . That's all I really remember; middle school is kind of a blur. And then high school, too, of course, was just a string of teachers, though a couple stand out:

Mr. Crivello, who taught my honors and AP English classes; I had him junior and senior year. He was the one to introduce me to Jackson Browne's music, and he was easily my favorite teacher. Mrs. Bason was a close second. She was my journalism teacher and the newspaper/yearbook advisor. She and I went to a Star Trek convention together once! She loved Elvis and Gordon Lightfoot. I also really liked Doc Robertson, who taught World History. He never talked down to us, and he could pronounce my last name correctly!

Oh, and then there is one teacher who was extra special. This was in my elementary school years. Beverly Truhardt. She was the Gifted & Talented teacher. She was with us from, I dunno, but it was pretty early on, and she moved from grade to grade with us up through fourth grade. Then she retired. There was something wonderful about knowing that, no matter what else, I would see the same group of students for certain classes, and that "Mrs. T" would be there, too. She was so creative! And she allowed for us to be creative, too.

I have a lot of other school memories; far too many to put down here and now. I will have to string them out over some other posts, I think.