Teacher Appreciation

I had a "favorite" teacher at every level of my education. Helen was my favorite grade-school teacher: she oversaw my seventh-grade homeroom, and she taught English. Helen took a shine to me early in the school year because she previously had had one of my relatives in her class. I also took to Helen quickly. I liked her so much that I started arriving at school early. Dad dropped me off at 7:30 each morning on his way to work. I then spent the next hour or so with Helen as she readied for the school day. 

I treasured those mornings with Helen. She shared simple life lessons with me. She introduced me to "Sen-Sen" breath mints (I used them through the college years), and she told me that after I washed my face, I should rinse with cold water to close the pores (when I've gotten facials, the aesthetician goes over my skin with a wand of dry ice). Helen became angry with me only once. She had stepped away from her desk to rouge up her cheeks. During that interval, I fooled around with her schoolmarmish desk bell. I broke the bell, and I didn't tell Helen. Helen confronted me the next morning about the damage. She admonished me, noting that failure to fess up to the break signaled a flaw in my character. After sputtering for a few seconds, Helen noticed a new item on her desk: an antique bell that I had brought from home and placed on her desk in the precise spot where that stainless-steel, desk bell had rested. Helen said nothing, but she used my bell for the remainder of the school year.

Classmates remember Helen for another story. In the middle of the year, Helen decided she would teach her twelve-year-old charges about literature appreciation. Helen proposed assigning The Catcher in the Rye, but some parents objected to the choice. Helen obediently withdrew that book from consideration. She instead assigned two novels. The first was Erich Segal's 1970 bestseller, Love Story. Our English curriculum for several weeks consisted of Helen's reading of the book—she omitted no narrative, and she articulated every curse word. After she finished Love Story, Helen turned to the "compare and contrast" novel: To Kill a Mockingbird.

Every student understood the lesson. But it didn't keep me from begging my Dad to take me and my friend, Cindy, to see Love Story in the theater. 

Now when I think about Helen's English class, I wonder whether she decided to read the novels because they made for easy lesson plans. I loved her nonetheless, and she lives in my quartet of the most appreciated teachers.

Melrose Park, Illinois, February 1971. I took this photo of Helen when she attended the confirmation of a close, grade-school friend.