Friday, March 9, 2012

You Use More Of Your Brain Teaching School Than Being A Nuclear Physicist - And You Can Have A Greater Effect On The World

Yesterday at the Disneyland ticket booth, which I only have to visit once a year when I renew my season's pass, I was entertained by the funniest woman. If you spend any time at the Disney theme parks, you know that everyone is identified by a name badge that also includes their hometown. Her name was Mary Lou and her hometown was The Bronx. I asked how long she had been in California, since she had no discernible accent. She actually said that she had not been there long enough to have lost a Bronx accent, but that her 2nd grade teacher had taught her not to speak with an accent. What I thought was that she must have had an amazingly good 2nd grade teacher - not so. It turns out that after Kindergarten in the Bronx, her family spent 2 years in West Virginia where she picked up such a thick accent that upon returning to the Bronx to continue with the 3rd grade, the school system wanted to hold her back 2 grades because they thought she sounded too dumb for 3rd grade. (Just to be clear here - we're not making fun of accents - just the fact that her teacher didn't even try to understand what she was saying. Like the comedy bit about advising your girlfriend to marry a British man, so her children would always sound smarter.) But my point, and I do have one, is how one teacher in grade school can have had such a profound effect on us as adults. I am left handed, but my 1st grade teacher, just by putting my paper on my desk on the proper diagonal, assured that I would learn to write like all the right-handers. No cramping up my hand and smearing my ink, by the overhanded hand position so many left-handers are stuck with. I'm not even sure if I'm remembering her name properly - Mrs. Macmillan? But every time I sign my name, her influence shows. (And in a good way!) So anyone know for sure what my 1st grade teacher's name was? Or have any residual effects from really good grade school teaching?

5 comments:

  1. This is awful to say, especially because I teach, but I cannot recall a positive effect of a grade school teacher. I can remember plenty of negative effects. For years I've had compliments on my handwriting...and it because a 6th grade teacher essentially made us draw our letters.

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  2. This is sort of odd, but the woman on the East Coast had her negative story that I wrote about, and my West Coast friends, (who almost never comment and just send me emails or call) all have good stories. Could the grade school teaching just get better as you go East to West? Although I could tell a few bad stories, I guess. If I had never moved from the West, I would not have know how strong regional differences are.

    Funny to write this, as I am sitting in the Orange County Airport right now waiting for a flight to Seattle, so I can see my cutie pie of a dentist.

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  3. I can remember SO little of my early education. Or my later education. Or, what I did last week! Clearly, being a teacher is not helping my brain!

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  4. Hey Anne - Are you just saying that to make all us memory impaired people feel young? Well, it worked! Thanks!

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  5. I remember many of my grade school teachers - Miss Davis (K), Miss Carpenter (2 & 3) (I skipped first grade; I used to tell people Miss C liked us so much in second grade she went back to school to learn to teach us the third grade!); Mrs. Borella (4 - I was scared of her); Miss Hammer (5 - Everyone was scared of her); Mrs. Haines in 6th grade. I don't remember all the teachers in junior & senior high school, only a few of the best. I loved school - and many of my teachers - until I went to university at 16 - I was far too immature to cope with it then.

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