I recently read
Sweethearts by Sara Zarr. It was a great read, very enjoyable despite the angst. The ending leaves you with a sort of unfinished feeling which is appropriate since that is a recurring theme of the novel. More than anything, the back and forth of 9 years old to 17 years old and the mixture of memories both past and present tense, stirred up some strange (happy as well as sad) memories of my own youth. From the myriad of these flashbacks (if my odd day-dream memory phases can be called that) I present a recollection of one of my favorite teachers. In high school there was Mrs. Aten and in middle school there was Mr. Schneider. But in my 3-5 grade school, there was Mrs. Scoggins, my fifth grade teacher. She was not only a great teacher, but a wonderful person, always volunteering her talent with the piano to accompany middle school students during Solo and Ensemble. This is how some people knew her and would always remember her. There are three things I remember very distinctly from my fifth grade year - okay, four - and I would like to chronicle those here in memoriam of this woman. Sadly I don't even remember her first name. She was always Mrs. Scoggins and that was that.
One time she asked us to write down on a piece of paper what we wanted to be when we grew up. I cannot for the life of me remember what I had written down. Probably veterinarian or singer. That sounds about right for ten-year-old Amanda. But what I do remember is what Adam Ashley wrote down. "First First Man." It caused our heads to tilt and Mrs. Scoggins asked him what exactly he'd meant. He replied that he wanted to be married to the first woman president thus making him the 'first' first-man. This was just too brilliant to let it slip into vague nothingness. I told my mom. I am waiting patiently for a Mrs. Ashley to run for president with her doting husband, Adam, beside her. This should happen sometime in the next ten years so keep your eyes peeled and, remember folks, you heard it here first!
The next memory of Mrs. Scoggins I have also deals with Adam Ashley. One day she came into class looking a bit preoccupied. Toward the end of the day she had us all sit down quietly in our desks. She said she had something she needed to tell us. The words "breast" and "cancer" changed everything. There would be surgery, there would be a substitute teacher for nearly three months, there would be a chance she could die. And right then, in class, many of us sobbed. Adam Ashley was the only boy who cried and I thought that was very sweet of him, like he was taking on the burden for me, because at that moment, I was too shocked and upset to shed a single tear.
Before the cancer scare (which she beat that first time!) she had us read a book about some youth or other who had a genius level IQ. It was a nautical book and I don't remember the name but I do remember this one part. The older brother, probably near or in his early twenties, is talking with his younger sister and he gets impatient because she isn't grasping something that he feels ought to come quite easily to her just as it comes easily to him. The little sister snaps back with one of the most eye opening things I'd ever read at that point in my life. She tells him not to get mad at her for not understanding, that it was like getting up in the middle of the night, stubbing your toe on a chair that was left out too far from the table, and then getting mad at the chair just for being! It was a good lesson for me. To this day I have issues with patience and it's good to think back on that damn chair. This doesn't always curb my frustration but it allows me, in the end, to see how stupid I'm being and that's better than nothing.
Another memory, and perhaps one of the best, was the day she gave me a B instead of an A on an assignment. It was a geography paper. We had to label all the countries and then color some of them in green and some of them in brown and I can't readily recall right now what the two colors meant but apparently I didn't know at the time of the assignment either because I went ahead and labeled everything nice and neat then colored the map with gorgeous and dynamic colors, drawing attention to mountains and streams and providing a ten-year-old's scope of depth to the art piece. That's what it was to me - not a map, but an art piece. Well, Mrs. Scoggins apparently saw this as an opportunity to pull my head back from the clouds a little. "Nice coloring job, Amanda. But you didn't follow the directions. B" That was the note I got back and when I went home that night I raged! Later on I realized that... yeah, I hadn't followed the directions. And had Mrs. Scoggins not held me to the same standards as everyone else I might have gone on to think that the rules did not apply to me. I might have fallen harder and further when this lesson of reality hit during college or during a job. I still have a grandiose sense of self and feel that my creativity allows for a great many concessions to be made in my favor... but I also now am aware of this and know when to reign it in and when to let it be.
The other lesson in that assignment was 'overkill is bad.' Mrs. Scoggins once told my mom and dad during a parent-teacher conference that I could do half the work and still make straight A's. She was a smart woman. And she could tell she was dealing with a smart kid. She never favored or mistreated me. Just gave me what I needed to carry on and be a successful student. About three years later (I'm not sure if it was more or less than three years, high school was a blur to me and many of the facts surrounding it are also blurred) the cancer finally won and she passed away. I was really heartbroken. I didn't cry. I don't know that I've ever cried for Mrs. Scoggins but she was such a strong woman that I don't think she would have wanted my tears. I think instead she would prefer me to think on her fondly. She would rather know that her life affected me, made me a better person in some way. And I think she did know that. As I said, she was a very smart woman.
