As I count down to my 50th High School Class Reunion, I find myself thinking of the many people who shaped me and prepared me for adult life. One of the things for which I am most grateful to my parents is an excellent education. Although we moved a lot (16 schools, 11 years, two countries), my father in particular always made sure his seven children attended good schools.
In Canada, the public schools were challenging, and that’s where I went. In California, where the public schools were considered mediocre at the time, I was always in Catholic schools. But surprisingly, the years we lived in the small Texas town where my dad had gone to public school, he knew I was in good hands. That’s because the teachers who had educated him were still around for me.
Like most school children, I encountered plenty of bad teachers. There were teachers who knew their subjects well, but simply couldn’t convey the information in their heads to their students. There were teachers who were lazy, and a few who really didn’t like kids. I was often frustrated by teachers who wouldn’t let me move forward as fast as I could. But I was blessed with a number of truly gifted and dedicated teachers, as well. A Jesuit priest taught me how to think, and Sister Laura Ann taught me how to write. Certainly my social consciousness and my feminism were a gift from the nuns who taught me.
My dad was a brilliant man, and in many ways he was the teacher who impacted me most and the person who inspired me to homeschool my younger children. He was constantly teaching us. He spent hours drilling me in math facts. He had the ability to do long series of complex math problems in his head, which kept me in awe. Every road trip was series of lessons. We stopped for all the museums, and at every historical marker. He kept us spellbound with stories of the places we were seeing and the people who had lived there.
In the depth of the Great Depression, when my father was a poor kid whose family was surviving on sharecropping and food from their garden, two teachers saw him for who he was. He was a little wild, but they corralled him and opened a whole world of learning to him. Then, a generation later, they taught me.
My dad’s love of math, and mine, was instilled by Bernice Boone. I can see her now, standing up in front of us in a plain shirtwaist dress with her brownish-grey hair slightly askew, chalk in hand. She was a no-nonsense person who was completely in charge of her classroom. She cast a spell over us with the force of her personality, and her clear intention that each of us would learn. She made sure no student was left behind; when we left the room, every one of us understood what she had taught that day. Yet she never held back those of us who could move ahead faster. She kept us engaged throughout.
Daddy’s fascination with history, and mine, came from Vivian Holmes. In appearance and style, Vivian was a complete contrast to Bernice. She was small and always beautifully dressed. She moved around the classroom as she talked, drawing us into her stories of the past and always helping us understand how the past informs the present. She had an acute political sensitivity. She didn’t tell us what to think, but she revealed to us the functioning of our political systems.
It was an era when few careers were open to women, and many chose teaching because of its compatibility with having children and being home in time to cook dinner for their husbands. But these two women were born teachers. And they were living their passion.