I dedicate this poem during "Teacher Appreciate Week" to my third grade teacher, Mrs. Takis. I entered third grade not being able to read. Mrs. Takis's classroom was quiet, focused, and she guided us to excellence. Every day of my teaching life and every book I enjoy is due to her.
*************************************************************
Black frizzie hair,
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Black frizzie hair,
thick,
bulbous nose,
5’2,’’ 230 pounds,
eyes
from a Hitchcock film,
Mrs.
Takis meant business
and
her business was the 3rd grade.
The
room was gray and brown,
designed
by the colorblind and the indifferent.
There
were no birthday charts,
smiley
faced figures
or
cats hanging merrily on a tree
telling
us to “hang in there.”
Just
rows of desks standing at attention,
miniature
closets for our tiny coats and lunchboxes,
and
the smell of lead pencils,
thick
pink erasers, and our own fear.
I
was scared,
scared
of being asked to read aloud
when
words were still a mystery to me,
scared
of feeling dumb in the face
of
a woman who could smell ignorance
as
it hid itself inside my big Red Sox hat.
On
the first day of class
I
leaned to my right
and
joked with my friend Aaron
(who,
amazingly, wasn’t picking his nose).
With
her bat-like hearing
Mrs.
Takis sensed the subtle sound waves
of
the whisper from 20 feet away,
put
her Broom-Hilda face inches from mine
and
told me “NEVER TO TALK OUT OF TURN AGAIN!!!”
This
was all on the first day of school,
long
before she made sure I took home
my
multiplication flash cards,
long
before she would cup my hand in hers
as
I practiced my cursive letters,
long
before she praised me
after
I read three words in a row
and
moved me away from my friends
when
real work needed to get done.
School
was to be my business too –
a
new idea.
By
springtime, I was less scared of her
and
even 30 years later
I
can hear the feverish syncopation
of
her heeled shoes echo in the hallway,
and
her nicotine-stained voice
commanding
me again –
“BE
QUIET, OPEN YOUR BOOK, AND READ.”
The reason this poem is so powerful is that you are not putting her on a pedestal. She is a real person with flaws, but also who did what she knew was best for kids and you were the beneficiary. Teachers tend to be hard on themselves (at least I am) when a lesson/project doesn't go perfectly. In the end, the kids are still learning.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading and commenting, Kerry. Mrs. Takis wasn't flashy and certainly was scary at times. But she is a good reminder to me that sometimes being strict and firm in the classroom can be both difficult AND what students need the most.
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