My Hero
My sister is a teacher in a very, VERY tough school. She teaches eighth-grade high school English. She has kids who do not know the name of the street they live on, let alone how to spell it. Kids are hungry. Every day. Hungry. They don't have pens. Pencils. Someone broke into the school and shot out the aquarium and stole all the textbooks this summer. This week, a student threated to "snap" her neck. He got a police escort out of the building. She comes home exhuasted. And she comes home emotionally exhausted because she is there for 8 hours, but these kids live it 24/7.
I call her every day to try to remind her what she does is heroic. Don't even get me STARTED on how much I hate how the word heroic is overused in our culture. A football player who makes a catch in a Hail Mary pass . . . who is getting paid $30 MILLION dollars per year (while kids go hungry in America) is not a "hero." He may be a good athlete. But he isn't heroic.
So today . . . my sister has a day off. And I thought I would ask my blog readers this weekend to post ONE story about a teacher in your life who made a difference. Maybe a teacher who has NO IDEA he or she made a difference.
Make my sister's day. Make mine. Tell me about a hero.
P.S. And if you would like to mail YA or MG books, bookmarks, pens, pencils, black and white composition notebooks to my sister, email me at erica@ericaorloff.com and I will send you her address.
36 comments:
Richmond:
Thanks for sharing. I had an English teacher who inspired me. I wrote her years later to tell her so. But the kind of work my sister does in the face of overwhelming odds . . . and your teacher. He sounds great.
E
My high school AP English teacher gave me hope at a time when I had little. He made me feel like there just might be a place for me in the world. When my first book was published, many, many years later, I thanked him in the acknowledgments and stopped by the school to give him a copy and thank him for the difference he made. He was still there (though it was his last year of teaching, so I just made it!), and it was a truly memorable experience.
Good teachers change lives-they are definitely heroic!
My high school Latin teacher inspired me -first of all, by making Latin a fascinating subject. It was years before I found out that not everyone loved studying Latin.
Also, though, he didn't see any reason to confine our studies to what was in our textbook. We moved quite quickly through our daily assignments. Once we had done that, we might spend the rest of the period helping John with his math assignment or learning how to make paper airplanes. Latin class was always an adventure.
I overheard this teacher talking to my mother.He said "If Sandra ever stops taking herself so seriously, she will be fine." It's a battle I'm still fighting, nearly fifty years later, but I will always be grateful to Mr. S. for that advice, and for caring.
Alyson:
That is so awesome. I bet he is tickled pink about your success!!!!
E
Sandra:
I had that problem too. I still do sometimes, but then I think four kids sort of slapped it outta me. LOL!
E
Junior High was the worst three years of my life. There will never be another time when I will know the fear/sadness/confusion that I knew in Middle School.
Ms. King was the only person who saw that I was having such a hard time, she's also the person that first encoraged me to write. She showed me that I had a real gift, and that was what's kept me afloat to this day. We still keep in touch there e-mail.
I tend to collect mother figures, because of certain issues at home. Since starting high school I've become good friends with most of the female teachers I've had. All of my technology teachers have become a major support, same thing with my science teachers. I've had one English that's been really awesome in high school, the rest of the English wing tends to give me a wide berth though. They act a little stuck up for my taste anyway.
My 4th grade teacher liked me, I thought. Until the day she sent me home with a note for my parents. It was fairly early in the school year and I couldn't figure out what I'd done wrong. And so badly wrong it would require a sealed note.
I gave the envelope to my mother and waited for the explosion. It didn't happen. I thought: she's waiting for Dad to come home. He did. And nothing. Days passed while I waited and waited and waited.
Finally my birthday came and my parents gave me a book - The Hardy Boys Mystery of the Whale Tattoo. Then they told me my teacher recommended giving me books as gifts since I loved reading so much. Oh my. All that worrying - wasted.
When I was in 6th grade, she asked me to come help her class with a going away party for her teacher's aide. Got permission to take me out of my class and everything.
She was teaching 6th grade when I was in 9th and we were at the same school that year. She gave me a copy of The Boxcar Children. It's my all time favorite book.
I tried to stay in touch after we moved, but I wasn't very good at it. I later learned she died of cancer. I think she might have been gay and maybe she saw herself in me. I don't know, but I loved her very much for her steadfast attention and support. She was a calm pillar in my childhood storm.
I was very lucky in the teacher department. I had more than my share who believed in me or encouraged me in some way, but the biggest influence, for me, wasn't even a teacher - it was the assistant principal in my high school.
Generally speaking, if she knew your name, it didn't bode very well for you. She knew my name.
When I was a sophomore, a friend of mine, we'll call her Candy, had a hard year. She had a fairly rough home life compiled by some pretty bad personal choices and wound up hospitalized for a few months. When she came back to school she was fragile. She didn't look fragile, she talked a really good game. But she was. She had it harder than most people have to deal with, but you know, kids in high school don't usually know what you go home to. Anyway, we were sophomores and there was a group of seniors that hated her. It was one in particular and it was over, of all the stupid things, a boy. But this girl and all her friends made it their business to make Candy's return to school miserable. They'd corner her at lockers and mess with her in the halls.
So I, being the delinquent that I was, took it upon myself to get even. I was a one man wrecking crew. I never told Candy I was doing it, but it escalated to the point that I did something really, really stupid... charge worthy stupid.
Well, I found out that Candy got blamed. When I got down to the deans office, she was sitting in the chair crying, with the principal, assistant principal, and dean all standing over her. She was going to be expelled.
I confessed. Quite frankly, I figured owning up to it would get me expelled. I probably deserved it. But I couldn't let her take the blame when she didn't even know anything about it. So I sat down and apoligized to Candy, and waited for the tirade, phone calls to parents, my walking papers.
The assistant principal took my side. (seriously, someone could have knocked me over with a feather I was in such shock)... she stood with this passionate speech that made me out to be the embodiment of all that they strive to teach young catholic girls (even typing it now, I have no idea how she pulled that one off). By the end of it, even the tiny nun who was our principal was nodding her head.
They never even called my parents. Not even a detention.
When I graduated, I was thinking, seriously thinking, about studying theology to become a high school teacher. My religion teacher was thrilled. The Assistant Principal said, "She's not doing that. She's a writer." Then she looked directly at me and said, "You're a writer. I expect to see your books someday."
That was it. Simple, not elaborate. She said what she had to say. But she believed it, before I even knew it was possible, she believed it. And when I do finally have my name on the spine of my books, it will be almost wholly because she convinced me I could.
Tell your sister she's very heroic. Take it from a delinquent, sometimes one person who believes in you can make all the difference.
JT:
I am glad you have people aroudn to support you. Junior high was Junior Hell for me, too,
E
Sarah:
That is a great story. What the simple (or not so simple) power of BELIEF in a child can do.
E
merry:
Holy craptastic (as Demon Baby would say) but that is an AWESOME story. Awesome!!!
E
Thanks Erica,
I swear no matter how creative I am, I can't come up with characters that are nearly as cool or unique as some of the people I've had the good fortune to meet in the real world... and I couldn't write it as non-fiction because no one would believe me. :-)
Oh man, Erica, I coulda sent a TON of stuff if only you'd mentioned it a month ago! Oh well. :-)
Teaching is the hardest job in the world. Can't convince me otherwise. God bless your sister.
I am thankful for all my teachers and my swim coach. I learned something from all of them, even the ones I didn't like. You can learn something from everyone.
This is a story I find funny now: my eighth grade teacher once asked me if I'd ever thought about being a writer. I promptly said, "No, I'm a pianist."
My jr. high teacher Mr. Childs. I didn't have friends - there were only a few girls in our grade and it was extremely cliquey - and spent most of those two years depressed.
My teacher told me that I was a great person and didn't need friends and that life would get better. He encouraged my writing and I know I am a better writer and the person I am today because of him.
I spent the last six years trying to find him and finally located him on the East coast earlier this year. I sent him an e-mail asking if it was him, to which he replied yes. I then sent an e-mail telling him that I was writing, what I was up to now, and how much he changed my life.
Sadly, I never got a reply back, but I take comfort in the fact that at least I got to tell him.
Maybe I'll send another e-mail today. :)
Wow Merry, that was one incredible story. Really really good. I mean that would be a good short story memoir.
Natasha:
I really hadn't thought of it . . . darn!!!
E
Nadine:
Whether he wrote back or not, I am positive it made him feel good!!!
E
My heroes are the middle elementary teachers who taught my son--fourth to sixth grade in a small-town school. One was a music teacher who pulled him aside and started to teach him music composition. Others pushed him, especially in math. Now he is a PhD chemical engineer. That would have never have happened without those teachers.
For myself, I have a whole host I remember. I'm certain they are virtually all dead now. I have listened to the health care reform debate. It has caused me to remember my freshman civics teacher who taught us a unit in propaganda. One of the propaganda techniques she taught us was The Big Lie.
One thing I might say about teachers. You never know what effect you have. My first year teaching, I taught an extensive unit on paragraph writing. One student, in particular, didn't do anything but complain about all the paragraphs he had to write. Years later he stopped me on the street and thanked me for what I had taught him. He said the writing skills he learned were among the most useful things he had ever learned.
A few years ago, after more than twenty years out of teaching, I received a phone call from a man who is a technical writer for GE. He found me on the Internet. He had been having lunch with a colleague, another technical writer in the same office. They were talking about their favorite teachers. It turned out that in both cases I was that teacher. I had had them both in Senior English, but in different schools. When I told him I was now a minister, he was clearly disappointed. He thought I was doing something much less important than teaching.
And finally, I thank God for my daughter-in-law who teaches fifth grade in an inner-city school. She faces a lot, but not as much as your sister from the sound of it. And she always does her best to help the students and to teach them. I admire any teacher who does that.
Sorry to have taken so much space. Tell your sister that good teachers change lives.
I went to Catholic school back in the Jurassic age. Lay teachers were a novelty and there was just nothing heroic about the nuns. One in particular (I call her Sr. Stephen King) taught fifth grade. I think she took pleasure in scaring the bejesus out of her young and impressionable charges. For instance, at the first snowfall she warned us, "Class, no snowball throwing during recess," punctuating the heavens with her arthritic finger. And then she'd tell the old tale of the kid who, on the first day of snow, went out during recess, got into a snowball fight, and took one in the eye.
Dragging her bent finger down her creviced cheek she said, "He came back to class, his eyeball dangling down his face."
Nightmares afterward? Hell yeah. Evil lurked in the seclusion of those black and white robes.
She told this story every year. My brothers and sister had her pleasure long before I did. In fact, she taught my mother and a few of her siblings, too.
Sr. Stephen King was proof that longevity comes to those who are evil.
P.S. Kudos to your sister. And I completely agree. There is nothing heroic about making $20,000,000 a year for just catching high-fly balls and hitting occasional home-runs.
I'm lucky. I've had at least three teachers in my life who made me want to be a better person.
But, one teacher stands out. Mrs. Eckenrod. She treated every single student the same. That treatment involved expecting the best. She didn't care about the circumstances you came from, what was going on with you in real life. When you came to class you were supposed to do your best. No questions. Of course, at first, I resented her.
Then every task she put out I met. I exceeded. She never pointed one student out for example. Or even an imaginary ideal student. Everyone was to her, if they just put in the effort.
Then I was going through a hard time physically. It started to take a toll on me emotionally and on my school work. I was so drained during one test I did the wrong activity. She pulled me to side and said, "I know this isn't you." She said I could redo the test quietly. At the time I was really low. I'd lost faith. That simple act still touches me. Even now when I start to lose faith again I remember there are people who will meet you half way. Who I will want to be a better person for.
So, to any teacher out there who feels they aren't doing, they are and it could just be a little thing that makes all the difference.
My high school American history teacher.
He didn't just teach names and dates, or the history of armed conflict. He taught the taught a history of the human condition. He made it relevant to our lives. He taught life lessons.
Although he could be tough, expecting each student's best effort, he coaxed it out of us in a way that empowered us, rather than employing shame or demeaning us.
He took the time to know us. He knew our ups and downs and was as much counselor as teacher.
Recognizing one of my "downs," he pulled me aside one day after class and told me I could when I thought I couldn't. He encouraged me to aim higher than I would have on my own.
He changed the course of my life, but he also modeled the way we should treat the people we find on our course.
Mr Brown no longer walks this earth in a worn pair of brown Rockports, but his teaching continues to shape the lives of those he taught.
I count myself among the fortunate.
Kath:
I had a friend who had stories like that. It was a wonder she didn't just quit school. However, she would make a GREAT fictional character.
E
Melissa:
Each of my older two kids has had teachers I just couldn't stand who really . . . couldn't "see" them. But then they were also afforded teachers like yours who made a difference. Oldest Son had two teachers this past year who changed how he looked at reading.
E
John:
I had a college professor who made every literary figure come to life. Like your teacher, he didn't teach us about the literature in a druy way but it became SO much more about life. He really made me LOVE English literature.
E
Erica-- I had a number of teachers who made all the difference. The one thing that they had in common was that they all treated me like a real person--something not all adults do with teens.
I am sure that my teachers don't remember those moments when they treated me as though I mattered, but I do. I was struggling with stuff at home and social stuff at school, and those teachers got me through.
One of them looked me up on facebook this summer. I think I'm going to go write her another thank you note.
Tell your sister that she is making a difference even on the days that she doesn't feel like she is. (Does that make any sense?) Thanks from all of us.
My college writing teacher. I ended up disappointing him though, by stopping writing.
But I think I still write to please him on a lot of levels, to make up for disappointing him. He was my first beta reader and so encouraging.
I apologize. I know it's late, but I hope it can rejuvenate your sister. She is amazing.
I was in 10th grade, summer school. South San Francisco, in the smack dab of suburbia nightmare-turned-ghetto. I fucked up A LOT that year. That's why I was in summer school in the first place, I was trying to make up credits for as many past transgressions as possible.
I screwed the year up again by getting expelled from summer school. I guess I had made such an impression on my English teacher during the short time I was there that she tracked me down & called my house after I had got expelled, infuriated that the principle had let me go. She offered to pay me to come back and tutor the kids in her class and help them write. When my mom drilled it into my head that the whole reason my teacher even wanted me back was because she thought I was a good writer, it changed my perspective on writing forever. I was a fuck up, getting into no end of trouble, but still, this teacher had faith in me, reached out and asked me to come back after I had broke so many rules. She didn't want to give up on me even though just about everybody else did. She gave me a confidence in myself that nobody had the ability to instill within me back then & for that I will be forever thankful to this chick. She made me respect myself as a potential adult for the first time, and that? It just felt so god-damn good.
Your sister is that hero everyday. She lights a path for these kiddoes when everything seems so dark that they can't even see what's in front of them.
Heroic is a subjective word. That football player may not be heroic to you; but to his fans, he is. He's heroic because, even though he's getting paid ALOT, he saved the day--he may have even made someone's day for that one moment in a sea of despair and sorrow.
I call that heroic.
Now, that said, your sister is even MORE heroic in what she does. I applaud her for that.
And eighth grade high school English? I'm sorry, Erica, I'm a little confused on that one
Sorry Lou. I hope I'm not picking on you.
Heroism is certainly subjective, but I have to agree it's overused. I don't mean to dismiss your argument entirely, but honestly - the football player you use in your example - he saved the day from what exactly? A loss in a sporting event? What were his or her motives? Did he act out of a desire to save his fans the agony of defeat, or his own? Did ego play a role? Someone watching may be having a bad day, week, or year - but the respite from that suffering due to the outcome of a football game seems incidental to me.
Dont get me wrong, I'm a sports fan myself, but I'm hesitant to bestow hero status for what athletes do on the field. They may be working hard for their teammates, or even thier fans, but this qualifies for hero status these days? What do they risk? They often risk injury, but often they recover - and they're compensated WAY out of proportion to the risk. The things some accomplish off the field, through various charitable works could, in my book, qualify for hero status - but not for catching a ball in the clutch.
In my opininion, heroes are characterized by their bravery, selflessness/self-sacrifice, and moral exceptionalism. Respectfully, I don't think even execptional play, under the pressure of winning or losing, rises to the level of an unambiguous hero.
I think placing them on that pedistal dillutes the brand.
Lou:
Oops. 8th grade English (last year of middle school).
As for hero, I have to agree to disagree. My point with the football player or whomever is that we have watered down the use of the word. And in my opinion (and mine, perhaps, only), words are powerful. When we water down their meaning, I think sometimes it's a slippery slope. The word "hero" or heroic was always associated with a Greek demi-god and its meaning was about courage, valor, and true bravery--often associated with self-sacrifice. I don't know that the word applies to a person who catches a ball. Perhaps . . . and I take away nothing from the fact that it's exciting for a fan. I am a diehard NY Giants fan who is close to insane when they make the playoffs. But I don't consider Eli or a single man on the field a "hero." Now, I know Eli and his brother choose to do a LOT of philanthropic work. That gets closer to the meaning for me. Maybe it's because I took Latin or because I went through rigorous years in English at University and grad school, but I believe words have power and I try to use them as I mean them and as I think their meaning warrants. But again, not to denigrate your position . . .
E
John:
I couldn't say it any better.
E
Hey, Realm! What a wonderful comment. I thank God for that teacher, too. She helped you see what a good person you are! God bless you.
Realm:
What a tremendous blessing such a person was.
E
I was very lucky at school. I had more good inspiring teachers than bad uninspiring teachers. You tell your sister that she is doing good work. I started out teaching in an Alternative School. One student threatened to blow up my car. One student gave me the finger in class. I got through the year, but I never went back to high school teaching. It was too hard. So congratulations to your sister.
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