Teachers I have known

We’ve all had memorable teachers, some good memories, some not so good; and some, well, interesting. The ones I remember especially well fit in the "interesting" group.

There was Miss Fraser, my sixth grade teacher at Earl Grey Elementary in Winnipeg. She was tall, and reed thin. Her hair was a blue-black, and her face as pale as her hair was dark. She taught us with lists that we had to memorize and then would test us using numbers – on bird pictures, geography, history, grammar. All lists. Nothing but lists.

What made her particularly memorable, though, was her habit of spending a few minutes before each recess, making sure her makeup was right. First the rouge, a cream rouge in a pinkish red that she’d daub high on her cheeks. This was followed by a bright blood-red lipstick, and a dusting of powder over everything. This gave Miss Fraser a china doll look that was unusual for someone probably close to late middle age (or maybe retirement, but we didn’t consider that. She was just OLD, but I guess she wasn’t ready to feel old).

The best thing about that year with Miss Fraser, though, was the bake sales and white elephant sales that we put on for the March of Dimes. The early 1950s was the high point of the polio epidemic, and a couple of classmates had been hospitalized, so we were doing our part to help.

The next teacher that I remember quite well was Mrs. Crookshank, my eighth-grade music and choir teacher. Under her wings we learned to sing rounds, hum the classical music she’d play for us on a scratchy record player, and put on two musicals for the school and parents: The Mikado and H.M.S. Pinafore.

But, she must have been very uncomfortable in her tight girdle that she kept trying to hitch up as I watched her in a mixture of admiration and curiosity, wondering if she’d ever be able to stop pulling that girdle up, or, if she’d give up and let it roll down. It never did. I’m not sure if I was disappointed or relieved.

My French teacher that same year -- we only knew her as "Madame" -- marched into the classroom the first day of school, speaking French and never spoke a word of English to us, ever. She expected the same from us.

"If you can’t understand me," she told us, "let me know and I will repeat it in different ways until you do." It could take several versions, but we always ended up knowing what she meant.

Speaking French, on the other hand, was a major frustration at first, until Madame told us that we could speak with our hands, using gestures, if we wanted. "Puisque, c’est comme ça que les francais parlent leur mêmes." (Because that is how the French themselves speak.) By the end of that school year, we were holding some pretty good conversations, and could understand Madame very well most the time.

OK, there were others too. Mr. Thor, my 7-year old class teacher in Iceland was one. If we
behaved and drank the cod liver oil that came in a pitcher to each classroom every day without complaining, or gagging, he’d finish it up. There was something so wickedly pleasurable seeing him steel himself to finish that last gulp of warm cod liver oil, and then shake his head violently to show he didn’t like it any more than we did. I think we were a class of little sadists.

My high school teachers were a whole ‘nother story, but I will describe them later.