March 15, 2021 – Favorite High School Teacher

        Sitting on a pile of years, the time I spent in High School seem to be on distant mountain top, far away.

Would it be the music teachers, the shorthand/typing teacher, the Math teachers. Social Study teachers or the English teacher? I sifted through the memories and not even a name surfaced.  I remembered Miss Dugan and Miss Sneed, my first-grade teachers, why not the high school teachers?

Then a vivid memory of my Latin Teacher surfaced. A sweet older lady who talked as if she was a transplant from the land of Antiquity of Italy, dressed in a flowing toga.

One day I raced down the hallway, dreading the sound of the tardy bell.  It rang just as I leaned in the doorway.  I thought I would be counted present, most of me was inside the door, but not even her toga shook, as she pronounced me tardy. I disagreed, I was almost all in the doorway, I said, pleading my case.  My heart-felt plea did not changer her decision.

Somehow, I had procured a job of patching library books in a small room just off the study hall. There was a windowed doorway into the room, and a window that gave a view of part of the those in the study hall.

One day I peered into the study hall and saw face after face appearing to be near the state of a deep sleep.  I checked the teacher in charge and saw the face of my Latin Teacher over-seeing the room.  That should have warned me.  I moved beyond her sight and decided it was my duty to cheer up my fellow students.  I began making faces. It was wonderful to see their faces brighten and come alive in the close confines to the Teacher of Antiquity.

I turned from the window and reached for the scissors on the table and glanced at the doorway.  Miss Antiquity had moved her location of supervision and stood with her hands on her hips, her arms spread like wings of indignation.

Her message came loud and clear. I sobered up considerably in an instant.  I feared for my position in the room off the Study Hall.  I had misjudged her vigilance and dedication to duty. I have always had respect for my Miss Antiquity.

Then there was my mysterious geometry teacher.  We wondered why she assigned a page number of problems and assigned more than enough and retreated behind her geometry book, propped up on her desk. Sometimes we couldn’t even see her face, she ducked so low.

Whenever we asked for clarification, she quoted the Formula.  When she said, look at your formula, it had a capital letter.  One day, my curiosity at its zenith, I made a circuitous trip to the pencil sharpener.  One glance gave me the answer to the year-long mystery. The book hid a small mirror, and she held a tweezers in one hand.  Now I knew her secret – mid-life zits.

Little did I know the observations of my teachers as I matriculated during my school years became my training to become a teacher, which is the last thing I planned for my life.  However, if I became a teacher, I wanted to be real with my students, and personable.  I did not think of students as learning machines, all learning the same way.

Then I began teaching, and the years rolled by.  I didn’t realize how quickly until a seven-year-old boy asked me, “Mrs. Combs, did you know you have grey hair?”

Where have the years gone?  What are the gifts I encountered during the 31 years of teaching?  Interludes of the joy of love for my students is a large one.  Each year, I had the challenge of loving and teaching and making a way for each child to learn easier.

I told stories of growing up, and shared precious memories with each child in my room.

Then I read what Jesus said this about children:  But Jesus called them to Him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.”

         “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” Matthew 18:5-6.

Teaching is about loving others. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35.