My first teacher was Mrs Cooper. She and her husband lived in the little cabin where I was born up Nat's Creek from my grandparent's place. I was staying with them so I could go to school. Truthfully, I don't remember much about her. I think she was relatively young. Had she much experience she would not have been relegated to a one-room school out in the middle of nowhere.
But I do remember she would get out and play (or at least referee) the games we played at recess and lunch. It was a long time ago but I don't ever remember anyone "acting up" in her class or getting a paddling. Teaching all eight grades in one room that must mean she was a pretty good teacher.
When we moved to West Van Lear, Ky for my second grade year my first teacher was Mrs Green. She was a somewhat overweight, thirty-something (at a guess). She was not much on paddling but she surely loved to grab you by your shoulders, lift you up out of your seat and shake the dickens out of you. Made your teeth rattle. Only happened to me once but I surely do remember it still.
Third grade was Gay Bailey. I can't recall whether she was a Miss or a Mrs Baily. She was really young though. She gave me my first paddling in school. It was for running in the classroom. I always felt a little bit of injustice in that as I was not running. I did jump across my desk but I did not even take a running start.
Fourth grade was Mrs Hazlette. I can't remember too much about her in any detail. She seemed old then, like most adults, but I guess she was on the sunny side of forty. I can remember the first half hour after lunch she would read to us. Two of the books she read to us were "The Sword in the Stone" and "White Squaw" which was the story of Jenny Wiley and took place locally. In fact Jenny Wiley is buried twenty or so miles from where that school house sat.
It was also while in her class President Kennedy was assassinated. The fourth grade classroom was also the main entrance to the school and had a porch in front of it. I can remember sitting on the left side of the porch (standing outside and looking toward the school) in the sunshine and thinking about the assignation. I know it was late November but it was a sunny day there. I was very sad. I just did not understand how anyone could kill our President.
We had all kinds of contests which made schooling more interesting. We had math contests, spelling 'baseball', plays on historical events. The one I remember was Edison inventing the light bulb. Our group did that one and we ran way short of the time limit and had to improvise to fill the time. Most enjoyable time I had in a while was that improv. The other two people on my team were petrified without a script but I had a feeling of being freed up to do what I felt instead of being forced into a rigid script.
I guess that is where my personal insecurities began to show because I can remember her telling me on one occasion to never feel down because there was someone I did not know who looked up to me and thought I was just the best thing ever. I thought she was talking about a real person and not just an idea and I always wondered who that was.
Fifth grade was Mrs Mollette. I think she must have been the oldest teacher in the school. She was the only one I can remember had any grey in her hair.
In her class was where my inability to participate in many activities really hit home. No valentines, no Christmas play, pretty much no nothing. Except cake walks. Do they still do those? It was kind of like musical chairs. All the contestants would form a circle and when the music played we'd walk slowly in a circle. When the music stopped the person on the 'mark' selected before the walk won the cake. I won three in a row. On the fourth one Mrs. Mollette gave me the dime I needed to enter for half the cake if I won. I did not win and was heart broken.
Since I could not be in the Christmas play I had to just sit at my desk and watch everyone else get selected for parts and rehearse. Long before the play I had memorized every line of every part in the play and used to get so frustrated that people could not even learn just their own lines when I knew it all and could not be in the play.
Sixth grade was Tom Hummer. He was my first male teacher and also the second one to give me a paddling. And, again, I felt somewhat abused. He told us not to do our Weekly Reader questions until he told us to. Well, at the time I was working in the "lunch room" and he assigned them while I was there. So, I never did mine. So I got a paddling for not doing them. I thought that sucked and was completely unfair. Of course fairness was something I had already learned not to expect.
I suppose I may owe him for some peace at home though I'm not sure. I had to sit at the dining room table and complete all my homework before being allowed to go to bed. One night my parent's were fighting (about me as usual) and so I quit working my math problems and just put down a bunch of random numbers so I could show them I was finished and get out of there.
So, when he graded papers I got about half of them right then the next half were all WAY wrong. He called me up to his desk and asked me about it and told me that was not like me. So I told him the truth. I don't know if he had a word with my parents but I really don't remember than ever having anymore big fights over me when I was around. If he did something like that then I have a lot to thank him for. More than makes up for one unjustified paddling.
My final year at West Van Lear was my seventh grade year. My seventh grade teacher was Larry DeLong. He was the Principal as well as the seventh and eighth grade teacher and was pretty much feared by every kid in school. I think he was just pretty much misunderstood as I think he was a pretty good teacher. The end of that year, a couple of weeks before school was out, we moved back to Nat's Creek and he had no problem with signing off on my advancement from seventh to eighth grade.
Those are just a few of my elementary school teacher memories. Later on I'll have to write some of my eighth grade and high school teacher memories.
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