Sunday, May 3, 2015

Hey teach, remember me?




There are a couple of posts on this blog about the effects we can have on people and not even know it, how an action creates an effect, maybe even years downstream.

A kind word, an interest in something that another picks up on, a random act of kindness, or a career of helping youngsters develop as a teacher might do. Only once in a while do those who create those situations ever see the results and when they do, it is immensely gratifying and a source of pride, a source for a smile, maybe even a tear or two.

My friend Gail Somerville taught in the Watts area of Los Angeles for 11 years in the late 60s and early 70s. Then she moved to Anchorage and taught there for another 35 years.

Just recently totally out of the blue she received an email from a former student, someone who is now around 50 years old and had been in her third-grade class in Watts in 1972.

Let that email speak for itself:

"Hiiiiiiiiiii Ms. Somervillle.... I'm crying. I'm sooo happy to see you. This is Terri …. You were my 3rd grade teacher at 95th street school. Ummmm 1972 I think. You were my absolutely favvvvvvorite teacher throughout school. Me and another classmate always speak about 95th and the good old days. Those were fond memories. You had all the animals in your class. Especially the baby chicks. And the snakes. I would win the spelling bee contest you had. I remember I spelled " received RECIEVED. And you knew I got that one wrong on my paper, but you asked me to spell it out loud and I spelled it correctly. You still gave me an "A"... And you let me win the spelling Bee contest.... I loved you in my heart ALLLLLLLL these years. . You took us to the malls and Lion Country Safari. We went so many places I can't remember. But I know you were the first to expose me to a lot of things, People, places outside our neighborhood that my parents back then couldn't expose us to. Thank you for being the loving kind person you were to me and all of your students...I will try to find a picture of me in grade school....
Much luv Terri [smile emoticon]"

Now think of this, think of all the youngsters who have passed through Gail's classes in more than 40 years of teaching and all the kids who have passed through all the classes. Could anyone possibly remember each student she ever taught? Gail has no recollection of this particular student. No recollection of her in class and yet she had such a profound effect on a third grader's life. If she had this powerful influence on one such student just imagine how many others have the exact same feelings to some degree or another.

Ponder too, the neighborhood where that child lived and went to school and where Gail was teaching and the general impression of what the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles is to most of us even today. It was a tough place to teach and a tough place to be a child growing up.  It was also a place where a teacher could have a positive influence on a great number of children and an email out of the past from a former student confirms it. Consider that, too, against the background of what has been going on in several American cities over the past week or so.

And, too, imagine how that makes the teacher feel. No need to imagine, here is what Gail had to say about it:

"Getting a letter like this serves, again, as a special reminder that we usually never know who our actions and words will have an impact on, so it is important, especially as teachers, to be careful in how we treat other people.  She said she was crying.  Now I am crying while grinning from ear to ear.  I am so touched.   :)"

2 comments:

  1. My daughter taught in an inner city school in the Bronx for four years. She was fresh out of Columbia University and ready to take on the world, in this case just a corner of it: 7th and 8th graders in English and history. She spent her own money to buy them supplies, especially books that she carefully chose for them. School administration officials did not tell her what to do or how to teach because they didn't care. But my daughter did. I expect that one day she will get a letter like that. It changed her, too, being there. Works both ways.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear Gail is one of my favorite people, a truly giving and caring person who always lights up a room with her big beautiful smile!

    ReplyDelete

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