Reply #9: So many good teachers.

[SheilaT]

In a way I'm fortunate that I went to elementary, junior, and senior high school in a time when women had few career options, and so many of the best and brightest went into teaching. But none of them behaved as if they thought they should have been doing something better.

There's Mrs. Green, my 6th grade teacher who had a reputation for being the toughest sixth grade teacher in the school, and she was, but boy, did I learn a lot. Mrs. Goodrow, 7th grade social studies who taught me how to figure out chronological order, and how to find things. Mr. Cuneo, 9th grade social studies teacher whose contempt for those who couldn't think for themselves made me realize I was supposed to think for myself. Mr. Haugh, high school math teacher for two years whose teaching was so amazing that thirty years after his math class I tested into Algebra II in my local community college, and discovered in that class that I remembered a great deal of the content of what I'd learned three decades earlier. Mr. Sterrett, who I had for both junior and senior English, whose love of language and literature was palpable, and who also taught grammar well. Any mistakes I make these days are because I've forgotten what he tried to teach me. M. LoMaglio, my French teacher for three years. I'll be going to my 45th high school reunion in the fall and I still can speak, read, and understand French pretty decently.