I remember in 6th grade I loved my teacher because she had these reading cards that you could read and test on at your own rate, and I was obsessed with reading them all-my first exposure to differentiation.

I must say though, that my high school teachers were my favorite. Mr. Riibe, the cool teacher who once staged a fight with my best friend, and then made us write about it to teach us to be good observers. Mr. Gitt, who taught me what little I remember about math, but most importantly would just talk to us like we were normal human beings, about anything we wanted to know, because he knew we needed someone to talk to, and we respected his opinion about things other than math. BUT, my all time, #1, favorite teacher was my english/speech/drama teacher..Sally Wengert. I went to a small school in rural Nebraska, 29 kids in my graduating class. Our world was pretty small. She would put us all in a circle and make us read plays about things that we had no idea existed. She would wage huge battles with the basketball coach over equally shared gym/stage time. She had the whole school more excited about speech and debate than they were about football. We spent hours and hours at that school practicing our one act plays, researching for extemp. competition, writing our speeches, building sets. She used to send me to the library to research while the rest of the class diagramed sentences. She turned the class clown into a great humorous speech competitor. She looked inside each kid and figured out how to teach for them. I can still see her, sitting cross-legged at mid-court facing the stage…script in one hand..cigarette in the other, calling out instructions to us as we stumbled through scenes from “The Crucible” or “The Capricious Pearls”. No one person in my life has ever pushed me outside of my comfort zone more than she did. Every time I stand in front of a group of people and prepare to speak, I see her sitting there, in a cloud of smoke, saying “Let’s hear it girl- convince me that you know what you’re talking about”. Thank you Sally Wengert- my best teacher ever:)

There was my second grade teacher, Miss Pellie, who didn’t get the least bit upset when my pet hamster got out of his cage while visiting at school. I remember us spending quite a bit of time looking for Sparky.

I think of my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Drummond who made me come out of my shell. I was a very shy girl who was happy to sit back in the corner and watch. She pushed me out of that corner and helped me build the self confidence I needed as I moved into junior high.

I now teach with my high school English teacher and have taught both of her children. English was never my favorite subject, but Mrs. Johnson was always there to push and encourage. I don’t think I would have survived my college English classes if it hadn’t been for her. I’ll always remember dressing up and reciting lines from Macbeth.

I hope that years from now my students will be able to look back with fond memories of their year in second grade. I hope that I have influenced their lives as greatly as my teachers have influenced me.

I lived for Science in those days. So I went to my English teacher, Mr Butterfield, a wee jolly man, and asked him what I could do to improve my English. “Join the debating club” was his reply. “There’s a debate coming up soon, you should be in it”, he said. There wasn’t much left in the way of candidates to choose from – Communist, Socialist. “You could go as an Independent . . . ” he said, ” . . . but that would be a difficult slot to fill.”

“There’s always Scottish National Party!” he mused after a long think. This party was a very minor party in Scotland at that time and was often the subject of ridicule. Old Butterfield put me in touch with Mr Haliday, HOD History, who was a well-known Scottish Nationalist who gave me some tips and information. There was also an enthusiastic sixth former who was very helpful with information. With the input from those two people I had enough material to join in the competition. As it happens, I won the election – outright. Mr Haliday was a friend indeed after that. In his eyes I could do no wrong! It was good to have him as my advocate in the senior staff of the school.

Three things are significant for me about these occurrences way back in the early days. One is that I was able to move through the senior school as a secondary student, went on to university and netted two degrees in Science. Another is that about 40 years later Scotland actually got its independence – but nothing to do with me winning a school mock election. The Scottish National Party had become the leading political party in Scotland and successfully managed to sever itself as an independent government.

But thirdly, I’ve never forgotten my teachers and what they did for me in my time of need.

Ka kite