Do you remember your kindergarten teacher?
As someone whose brain is overflowing with obscure facts from decades ago, you’d think that one would be a slam dunk.
Our home’s resident almost-14-year-old ventured out today (as I write this) for his first day of the new school year. My mind immediately began filtering through my own school days, back when we used stone tablets and walked uphill both ways (barefoot) in a blizzard every single day.
Now, I’m a huge teacher guy. The impact many of these fine folks have had on my life is immeasurable to this day. And I have fond memories of almost all of them. With the help of my sister filling in a Grade 4 gap, I was able to rattle off the names of all of them from Grade 1 to Grade 7.
Grade 1: Mrs. Harrington. A nice lady who told me not to worry about the yucky girls trying to kiss me at recess.
Grade 2: Miss Reiber. Also nice, though I have vague recollections of things not going well for me if my coat slipped onto the floor in the cloakroom.
Grade 3: Mrs. Tuckey (that’s our class in the accompanying pic). Easily a medallist in my favourite teachers of all time. A wonderful lady.
Grade 4: Mrs. Hubers. I do recall she didn’t enjoy me throwing tiny erasers at the girls after I was finished my work.
Grade 5: Mrs. Rickard. Did a nice job of reining in my tomfoolery and giving me extra work to do.
Grade 6: Mr. Logan. Unforgettable, so much fun. I still use “unmitigated twit” in regular conversation.
Grade 7: Ma’am Taylor. Equally unforgettable. Wore a lab coat to class, rewarded us by letting us help clean her property and made me want to learn as much or more than any teacher I ever had. Inside note: “That’s a Pi.”
Of course, it would take forever to try to run through a complete list of all my junior high and high school teachers. Some years ago, I did mention a collection of the junior high gems after getting an amazing surprise visit from Mr. Rodman, my former principal from Grade 8 to Grade 10. Still one of my all-time office highlights.
And in high school, I had a collection of memorable instructors as well. ‘Magnum P.E.’, Mr. Webb; Mr. MacLeod, who was often frustrated by how much I chatted in class, but was very encouraging as I began working in the media; Miss Cooper, my all-time favourite teacher who somehow magically ended up at the high school along with us… without her I’d never be able to understand French hockey broadcasts; and Dr. Hargreaves, who didn’t stop ensuring my writing was up to snuff long after I left the building.
“Dear Philip,” the hand-written letter began. “So nice to see you have continued to use your gift for words. However, I must admit I was surprised to see your use of ‘rigor moral’ in your latest column when I know you meant ‘rigamarole.'”
Ouch. Remains my most painful typo. All these years later, I see the word and still cringe. The impact of teachers!
But for all that, the name of my kindergarten teacher continues to escape me. I figured the name would come to me as I wrote this, but I’m still drawing a blank. I do have a solution, which would be crawling under the house and finding the big, blue ‘year-by-year’ book my Mum used to chart our progress through every school year.
Yet the surefire pain of crawling around down there currently exceeds my intellectual curiosity, so I’ll just have to wait until the name pops into my head. I’ll keep you posted.
* Do you remember your kindergarten teacher? Have any memories of impactful teachers you’d like to share? As always, send ’em along. Bonus points for photos.
PQB News/Vancouver Island Free Daily editor Philip Wolf welcomes your questions, comments and local story ideas. He can be reached via email at [email protected]; by phone at 250-905-0029 or on Twitter @philipwolf13.
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