Gratitude Month

Teachers --
I was blessed with the best middle school experience ever... not what you expect as most folks think that life between the ages 11-13 are the most awkward and therefore, least desirable... Maybe it was just in comparison to my previous experience, but with the value of hindsight, I still see it as the best.

It was my first public school experience; my parents thought that parochial school would seal my soul's fate. It was considered the worst school in the city. Long before I arrived there, the world had decided that the school and its inhabitants were not worth much. When the windows were first broken, they were replaced with plexiglass. When the plexiglass was treated badly, it was replaced with wood. There were a great number of classrooms at that school with rows of plywood instead of windows. By the time I got there, it had long been forgotten by the powers that be.

But not by most of the teachers and the administrators. I can truly say that I have never experienced such a dedicated staff, as a student or as a teacher. These teachers and students did know that they were teaching at the Rodney Dangerfield of schools, but they never treated us that way. And many of them went on to become administrators at other schools and bigshots in the district. Regardless of whether or not they were using the experience as a stepping stone, more power to them, we only knew their best.

These were the only guidance counselors I knew as a student who actually took the time to get to know all the students, not just the ones with a problem. And these were the teachers who knew how to deal with our raging hormones and still teach us.

I learned things from my literature teacher, Mrs. Davis, and studied pieces of literature with her that I didn't see again until twelfth grade. She made everything very real for us, but never in a patronizing way. She never treated us like the poor kids with no culture and no class... she elevated us and taught us what we needed to know. Thanks to her, I saw La Boheme, The Mikado and various other plays with my classmates, after having read them. We knew more about George Bernard Shaw probably than the actors who starred in West Side Story... and we read the original Pygmalion, from the Greek, as well. We were her Eliza's ... but she never made us feel that way.

I could go on and on... but maybe, that's enough. To all those teachers, who demonstrated true dedication to one's craft, I dedicate this gratitude month. I hope that as a teacher, I gave my students one tenth of what I got from that phenomenal staff. I hope I have the chance to give them my gratitude in a more tangible way some day.

We always forget and underestimate the value of the thank you.

There are countless other things in my life for which to be grateful, but in my present profession, I have been earnestly contemplating my educational experiences, particularly those in public school, and imagining what I would like for other children/youth to have in California. Those teachers I had in middle school, those are the ones I wish for the children/youth of California: ambitious, caring, earnest, and willing to go with the kids where you need to go to get them where you want them to be.