Sunday, February 18, 2007

From Vox.com’s Question of the Day

Who was your best (or worst) elementary school teacher?

I’ve been a bad bad blogger lately.  If helps to know this, I’ve been a very very good employee.  And being a very good employee means getting caught up on bills, and eating stuff other than those icky $1 Hungry Man dinners.  It’s hard to eat well when you’re not able to afford fresh foods.  If you ever want to know why poor people are fat, just look at the prices of food the next time you buy groceries.  Stuff that’s loaded with fat, calories & salt = cheap.  Fresh fruits, vegetables, seafood, and good frozen meals = expensive.

Okay, now to answer the question of the day.  My best elementary school teacher, by far, was my first grade teacher, Mrs. Miller.  It seemed like she was 100 years old when I had her, but I suppose that couldn’t have been possible. My brother, David, also had her for first grade.  She loved books and reading.  She made us read aloud constantly, which made us much better readers.  I used to really hate being called on, but when Mrs. Miller told me that I read so well that she wanted me to read to her at home, I think I probably wanted to be called on every day in her class.  That was 36 years ago and I still remember that she said that.  I have three older brothers, but only David likes to read for pleasure like I do, and I think it was because of Mrs. Miller.  My mom always got us books and took us to the library, so we had a good influence at home, but it seems like Mrs. Miller was the tipping point to make us love reading.  Or, maybe David & I would’ve loved books no matter what, because my mom loves books.  Since David & I are more like my mom than Glenn & Craig are, maybe it’s just natural that we love to read.  We also hate misspelling words.  Glenn & Craig can read just fine, but they never go out of their way to read anything except the newspaper for purely pleasurable purposes.  At least not the last time I checked.

I had other elementary school teachers that I liked, but I don’t think they contributed to my future like Mrs. Miller did.  My second grade teacher, Mrs. Kappes, was the nicest teacher I ever had, I think.  She always seemed to be smiling.  Mrs. Ragsdale, my sixth grade teacher, was a fabulous artist and always wore really stylish clothes.  Mr. Markus was my fourth (or was it fifth) grade teacher, and I thought he was cool because we were both kindasorta distant cousins of Ron Mix, the San Diego Chargers Hall of Fame football player.  So, it was neat to have a teacher call me “Cuz”.

The only teacher who stands out as mean, from elementary school, was Mrs. Brill.  She wore her hair in a really tight bun that looked uncomfortable.  Maybe that’s what made her so grumpy.  She was mostly okay to me, but she was mean to some of the other kids.  She wasn’t a bad teacher though.

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