Teacher Appreciation Week

May 5-9 is teacher appreciation week.  I find that’s a good time to reflect on what teachers did for me in my life. 

I seem to remember the characters.  Maybe they were good teachers, I’m not sure.  I generally did well enough in school and enjoyed being there anyway.  But here are a few who come to mind:

·        Miss Hardway – First grade teacher, Lost Creek, West Virginia.  I remember getting in trouble for kissing the girls as their ring-around-the-rosey circle came past me.  When we came in from recess I was chastised and all were lectured that the boys would kiss the boys and the girls would kiss the girls.  I’m glad that rule didn’t stick.  No wonder she was never married.  She retired following my exit from first grade and my mother always implied that I must’ve had something to do with that.

·        Mr. Suitor – Sixth grade teacher and principal of White Hall Elementary School, West Virginia.  He was well known for his coffee thermos and every sixth grade class was to have someone try to slip Exlax into it.  He was really very kind to me considering that he caught me putting a tack on another student’s chair.

·        Ms. Lyons – 7^th grade English Teacher, Fairmont Junior High, West Virginia.  I always liked to write and tell stories and she encouraged me.  She was small and petite and once, when in a traffic jam in the hallway, I poked her in the ribs thinking she was a classmate.  Oops.

·        Ms. Eliason – 7^th and 8^th grade music teacher, Fairmont Junior High, West Virginia.  My brother and I played accordion and sang, so music class was a breeze.  She was my first intro to eccentric teacher of the arts with the fog of heavy perfume, her dramatic way of talking and the blazing red beehive hairdo.

·        Mr. Everhart – 7^th and 8^th grade physical education teacher, same place.  In his class I witnessed my first mean spirited and racist teacher.  Never thought I’d learn to hate a teacher, but I find when I think of him today I am as disgusted as I was then.

·        Mrs. Christian – High School Choral teacher, Fairmont Senior High School, West Virginia.   I always loved being part of the touring choir and she would let us drive her big old station wagon to load up the risers and set up for some of our traveling concerts.

·        Ms. Huber – Freshman Algebra I and Senior Pre-Calculus/Trig.  How I qualified for that senior class with a foundation of C’s and D’s I’ll never know.  She persevered and insisted I deserved to be there.

·        Ms. Ford – Creative writing.  I was one of a group of college bound seniors who had Ms. Ford all year long for an elective in creative writing.  We wrote stories and poetry and monologues and entertained each other.  We made each other laugh and cry.   She got married and moved away and 20 years later, while serving on an accreditation team that was reviewing her school, I found one of my stories still in use on her bulletin board. 

I find it’s always fun to share teacher stories.  We sometimes are forced to recall our own misdeeds or poor choices, but they are part of who we are.  Every teacher in someway becomes a part of who we are.  They don’t often get to know if they had an impact or not.  We should let them know.

If you were able to read this and comprehend it fully, thank a teacher.