WWII kids, who are sometimes grouped
together as “The Silent Generation”, remember Popeye squeezing a can of spinach
right into his mouth. It made him
strong—“strong to the finish!” Back then,
fresh veggies were in short supply for a good part of the year, but thanks to
early twentieth century modern canning; there were plentiful servings of what
was good for you, spinach. I think the mother of all canned spinach is
school. It’s supposed to be good for
you, but it takes a talented teacher to dish it up just right.
I hated school through all but one of my elementary
years. It began with Kindergarten when I
was four. The minute I entered, I knew I
did not belong there. I thought to
myself, “There must have been some mistake!”
If you made a blunder and sucked your thumb, my favorite habit, Mrs. Fast
dipped it in awful tasting stuff. You
had to line up to use the bathroom.
Girls hardly ever got a turn to play with the blocks.
The next three years were not much better. In school, I was very quiet and appeared to
learn very little. At home, my mother read to me, or I listened to the radio,
set up dramatic scenarios with my collection of plastic animals, and talked to
my dog. Teachers were puzzled as to why
I could not seem to learn to read. I did, however, learn to tell time as I
watched the clock make its slow progress towards dismissal at 3:30. The minute
hand would quiver and then jump forward.
Then, there was a miracle. Fourth grade happened. With her soft brown hair curled in a
permanent wave, dignified, graceful, Mrs. Allen wearing a perfect tweed dress
and sensible shoes stepped in the door. She had a friendly smile and hidden,
blinky, squinty eyes fortified from time to time by glasses. Mrs. Lillis B. Allen was such a brilliant
teacher she gave us the spinach without making us suffer a bit.
Of course, Woodstock was a small town, and I have an
older brother, so I had been told how lucky I would be when my turn came to be
in her class and that Mrs. Allen would be reading all of Albert Bigelow Paine’s
The Hollow Tree stories. What I did not know was she would allow so many
unique things in the classroom.
“If you have to leave to use the bathroom,” she said,
“get up, put your name on the blackboard at the side of the room and erase it
when you come back.” We were all confounded.
No more raising one or two fingers.
No more embarrassing call outs or questions. Just go if you need to go. As good as the
local myth, she read us The Hollow Tree, stopping each day at just the
right moment to keep us in suspense. At
home, I learned to read immediately, as if by magic. My first book was Walter Farley’s The
Island Stallion. I have to laugh when I recall how puzzled I was that each
page started with the words “The Island Stallion.” Since I was reading at home not at school,
nobody had told me about headings. At
school, for the most part, I still sat in stunned silence, a classic introvert.
Being around so many people for so many
hours of the day depleted my energy.
Children sixty years ago were not abnormally polite. There were moments of chaos and
distress. Mrs. Allen used to leave the
class alone for about ten minutes in the afternoon to take a break, relax and
have a cigarette, and, usually, we stayed quiet. Once, when we all piled into the coat closet
and were caught by Mrs. Allen, we were actually ashamed, and Edie H. who had
good political judgment even then, apologized and made us all write a card
saying we were sorry.
I appreciate what I learned during that one lovely
year. I still know the cloud formations,
and have an undying curiosity about ancient Egypt. My classmate, Holly G. told me fourth grade inspired her to become an
archaeologist. Recently, she showed me
the National Geographic article Mrs. Allen read us about the opening of
King Tut’s tomb. It was a very dull report, but she slowly revealed that long
ago archaeological event reading a little every day and showing pictures of the
boy-kings’ golden mask to a group of astonished eight and nine year olds.
Working on my own, after having been inspired by Walter
Farley’s books, I wrote a book and a song about horses that year. I was very
happy to find my little manuscript along with my brother, Norman’s epic “How I
Came To Kill A Pirate Captain.” among the things my mother saved in a little box
of treasured items.
The rest of elementary school was just spinach. I went back to watching the clock. My teachers were probably well intentioned,
but, in my case, most were ineffective with the exception of those who taught
by instilling dread. I was one of the
terrified children who learned math, and learned it well, from Mr. V., who
called all students by barking out their last name (“Boggs!”) and directing
them to the blackboard at the front of the class for either success or
humiliation, depending on the day’s lesson.
Teacher evaluation is in the news today. I don’t buy into the current ratings game. It
is well known that teachers are required to have children do well on
standardized tests. It’s all part of something we like to call “accountability”
which has been a tremendous boon to the testing industry. I do not know if the testing, the evaluations
and pure longevity would have given Lillis Allen her deserved star status and
saved her job during a cutback. I am
sure that during her tenure, she was not paid enough nor was she thanked enough
for making all that canned spinach seem fresh.
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