“Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.”
The day is sunny and still but a bit chilly. I was outside earlier watering the deck plants and, as usual, got caught up in all the activity. I watched my birds and I watched Gracie. She ran at full tilt the circle of the yard including up one set of stairs and down another. She did this a couple of times until her tongue was hanging and she had exhausted herself. She does this run just about every day. When she runs the straight back of the yard, she reminds me of a greyhound. Gracie is lean and leggy.
When I was in the sixth grade, I was finally on the second floor of the new school, the floor reserved for the older kids, for the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, two classes of each. The supply room, the janitor’s closet and the principal’s office were also on the second floor, their doors beside each other all in a row. I used to sneak peeks into the principal’s office on my way back from the girls’ room as her office was almost directly across from the girls’ room door.
We never asked to go to the bathroom in elementary school. I have no idea why. In the old school, we’d ask to go to the basement because that’s where the bathrooms were, but in the new school we’d ask to go to the girls’ room or the boys’ room. A bubbler separated the two doors.
My sixth grade teacher, Miss Quilter, is my favorite teacher of all time. I remember her standing between rows of desks in the front of the class. She always wore a 1950’s shirtwaist dress, usually with a belt, and she’d hold a book in one hand and gesture with the other. She wore the thickest glasses I’d ever seen, and they made her eyes looked enormous. Miss Quilter made lessons come alive. History was like listening to a story. She even made arithmetic interesting, a labor Hercules could admire. She made me hungry to learn, and I digested everything she taught and wanted more and more and more.
The sixth grade is one of the most important years of my life. It was the year I started to love learning, and I will forever thank Miss Quilter for opening up a whole new world for me, one I inhabit still.
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
September 16, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Oh yeah! The second floor! That was very, very important for kids of my school too! Thank you.
September 16, 2010 at 6:28 pm
I’m happy to have jogged your memory, Mario!
September 16, 2010 at 2:03 pm
It´s been a half nasty autumn day here. Not really cold but still it made me freeze when I was out with my dogs walking.
I had a teacher like that too. Two actually. the first one I had from grade 4 to six and the second in geography for two years. Unfortunally for me I didn´t have any gteacher like that in highschool 🙂
Have a great day now!
Christer.
September 16, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Christer,
It got really cold today. I shut all the windows and the back door. If it weren’t supposed to be 70 one day soon, I’d put the storm door on.
I had a great teacher in high school too, but she only taught history. I wished she taught everything.
September 16, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Saunders was the name of my favorite teacher from school days. He used to recite Shakespeare perfectly and it was like watching a play on Broadway. He always wanted his students to recite for parents night but most of us were too damn scared. I did once and was happy when it was over and he said I raced through it. Well, I probably did. I hated being up there. But he was a genius type person who had that gift to teach.
September 16, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Z&Me,
Those are always the ones you remember.
I had poor teachers, okay teachers, several very good teachers, but only a couple who were gifted.