7625 - Thanks, WK!

[scottobear]

Inspired by Kerby's recent entry:

What was your first grade teacher's name... and what were they like?

How much did you have to rattle your brain to retrieve that info?

(feel free to post answers in comments)

Comments

teacher

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

Mr. Adams was my first grade teacher. He was thin, had a mop of black hair, and wore "gilligan"-style sweaters... (red long sleeves with white collar and cuffs sticking out)

He taught me my first memory of deductive reasoning... you can tell if it's raining by looking in puddles for concentric rings, even if you can't see the rain falling itself.

[mary919.livejournal.com]

I can only remember as far back as third grade no matter how much I rattle my brain.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

what was your 3rd grade teacher like? I recalled grade one right waway, but I do a fog-fade at grades 3-5.

[eryx-uk.livejournal.com]

Mrs. Pankhurst.

I remember that easily because she really was the archetypal bitch school teacher.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

gray hair in a bun, granny glasses and a ruler used as a pointer and a method of discepline?

[applelard.livejournal.com]

Miss LaCoy. I remember that she had long, brown, feathered hair. She was thin and relatively tall (I remember that because she once brought in a kimono that I modeled because I was the tallest one in the class). From what I can recall, she was nice.

Didn't have to think very hard about that at all. I remember all my elementary school teachers names, as well as my pre-school teacher's! (For the record, her name was Miss Elaine, and she also moonlighted as a salesperson at Stride Rite shoes).

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

Miss Elaine LaCoy? pretty spiffy name.

Oooh... Miss Elaine. Makes me think of Lady Elaine, the naughty puppet on Mr. Rogers.

http://pbskids.org/rogers/make_believe/lady_char.htm

[constance1010.livejournal.com]

Miss Weik

She was a softspoken asian lady. She was short.. that I remember. She used to walk around the playground at recess and all the first grade girls would hold hands with her and make a big chain.

I remember her fairly well... although I can remember all my teachers in grade school... Im weird like that.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

I've found that most folks can remember grade 1 teacher pretty well, with only a very few exceptions.. remembering all of them is a pretty neat trick!

[missv.livejournal.com]

My first grade teacher was Miss Salonen. Her name's easy to remember because my Kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Sullivan....and I've always thought it was funny that the two names of my first two teachers sounded so alike.

She was quite young, slender, with long brown hair, sparkly eyes, and a gentle voice. I adored her because she was the first person to recognize that I was gifted reader and she always gave me fun things to work on when the rest of the class was doing "baby stuff."

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

hooray for sparkly eyes and a gentle voice... and especially for not making you wait for an education you were ready for!

[huerter0.livejournal.com]

Melinda Manson. She was short with big surprised, kind of vapid eyes and curled brown hair. I believe she was a newlywed and had a thing for George Brett, whose life-size poster could measure your height.

I was traumatized because she made me miss recess once to re-color some monkeys for a counting/coloring exercise because I went through it too quickly and did not stay in th lines.

Didn't take much. I think I was taking mental notes on how to be a teacher even then ;o)

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

Ouch.. with a name like manson, she'd have some stuff to live down!

I'm weird.. probably would've preferred to color monkeys to recess! :D

(I had to look up george brett, too... my sports trivia is severely lacking!)

How many students would you estimate to have taught so far?

Ms. Manson

[(Anonymous)]

She would really traumatize you now. She divorced, dyed her hair blonde and had a boob-job. She's a heart breaker

[(Anonymous)]

Mrs. Massell was a motherly-type. Always kind and understanding. She made you feel safe, especially my first year in Catho-holic school. As the years waned on, and I took my beatings from the nuns, Mrs. Massell was always comforting. She knew what the nuns could do to a kid. She even came to my 20 year eighth grade reunion.

Here's to you, Mrs. Massell!

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

Keeno! Good on Mrs. Massell!

Also, who are you? :D

[happykitty69.livejournal.com]

There is no way for me to retreive this information. I was a sad little first grader. I don't remember much from that time.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

well, I hope you're happier kitty!

[ckirkman.livejournal.com]

Mrs. Price. And she was a raging bitch.

Didn't have to rattle my brain at all...I remember because she used to rattle ours when she lost her temper and shake us.

[(Anonymous)]

like a bad nanny!

[rejectomorph]

We moved that spring, so I had two first grade teachers. At Willard School, it was Mrs. Jones. She was a good teacher for first grade kids, calm and sympathetic and patient, and always full of encouragement. I think she was probably in the early years of her career, in her late twenties or so. She had long, slightly wavy chestnut hair and soft features.

At Monterey Vista School, I was in Mrs. Johnson's class. She was probably just a bit older than Mrs. Jones, and had shiny, black bobbed hair and a rather severe, angular face, with wire-rimmed glasses perched on her sharp nose. She was much more businesslike than Mrs. Jones, and a bit impatient. I found her intimidating.

She was also less observant than Mrs. Jones, who had noticed that, while in the reading circle, I would read ahead in the book to myself while the other kids were struggling with reading out loud. By the time the reading got around to me again, she knew that I had lost my place and would just tell me where to start.

Mrs. Johnson never caught on, and thought that I was simply unable to keep up or to pay attention. She put me in the group with the slowest readers, which simply exacerbated the problem.. I'd get even farther ahead of the group, and find it even more difficult to figure out where we were in the book. I didn't much like Mrs. Johnson.

Luckily, I still managed to make it into second grade, and my teacher there, Miss Wachter (fresh out of college) was much more observant than Mrs. Johnson, and realizing that I was already reading well ahead of grade level, let me read on my own, outside the groups.

I remember all my elementary school teachers quite clearly.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

quite vivid memories, indeed! I wonder if the majority of folks on LJ were more advanced readers at that age?

[ilenebook.livejournal.com]

I remember still at 58 years old... 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, but not 6th.
My first grade teacher's name was Mrs. Allen. Sweet elderl lady and when I bumped my knee on the table at registration she gave me her handkerchief.
I loved that woman.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

aww!

a little kindness is remembered a long time!

[gilbertbee.livejournal.com]

Mrs. Radford was a mean, mean lady. I was so afraid of her that one time, I really had to go to the bathroom, but waited so long before finally asking her that I peed my pants on the way to the bathroom. She used to throw temper tantrums and slam the door so hard she'd make the thermostat hiss. Once, I overheard my mother talking to one of her friends, who happened to be a teacher at my school, about how Mrs. Radford had really bad PMS and that's why she had such terrible mood swings. I thought that meant she had a terrible disease, like cancer, and was going to die soon. I stopped being afraid of her and started feeling sorry for her. I never peed my pants again.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

yikes!!

I'm glad you used your kindness to bypass the pee issue.

[weezeroni.livejournal.com]

Until I was in 7th grade, I had really, REALLY unorthodox schooling. My first teacher was Miss Shaloma. Shaloma was her first name and I went to school at her house in the woods. I learned to read really early and wrote with my friends, and learned math by cooking. We spent hours listening to music and, with our eyes closed, painting what we heard and felt. She had this ginormous library, and my friend Kathy and I would pull out these books of science experiments and just do them for hours. In Elementary school, I had Mrs. Brooks, who read us the Gold Bug using these amazing accents, and who organized our learning of the Salem witch trials by recreating a day during that time with the whole school participating. It is interesting to note that in 3rd grade, I participated in a play which combined Hamlet and the rock opera Tommy. I played a crazy woman who talked to the dead guy at the funeral. Lotta 60's folks at that school. It's a wonder that I'm not odder, but it was amazing.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

very interesting, rath "auntie mame" style of schooling! Sounds almost like home-school, but without the fellow-kids socializing issues!

[tarpo.livejournal.com]

Mrs Rowsell, she was the wife of a catholic priest that had a drinking problem.. He got in trouble once for passing a school bus that was picking up students and had its flashers on.. She was a mean crochety old thing.. Ancient even when I had her as a teacher.. She wore 3 rings on each hand and if you were acting out she would give you a rap on the knuckles with them. I saw her when I was in Nfld in July

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

Has she aged at all, or is she stuck at q permanent 75 years old?

Interesting

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for picking up on my post re memories of teachers. Your comment that we remember kindness a long time is very true. The corollary of that is we forget those who don't connect with us. "Memory is a gentleman." Last night my wife mentioned that there were only three or four teachers in her 18 years of education she can remember. Same here.
What a shame that such an important and intimate thing as learning is so crowded with such forgettable clowns.
wk
www.wkatckm.blogspot.com

Re: Interesting

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

flipside, it seems a lot of people remember the most unkind as well as the most kind.. the blah-middles seem to be the ones that grasp oblivion.

[(Anonymous)]

mrs. popalarski nee gorman.

it came right to me. is that bad or good? she got married smack dab in the middle of the year. in order to spell her name, she changed the words to the mmc theme.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

I think that it came back so fast is probalby good, as long as you have fond memories of her!

Who are you, by the way? Happy to have you by!

[rosin-dubh.livejournal.com]

Mrs. Kristofik was my 1st grade teacher... it was a 1st/2nd split class. She was alright, once I managed to convince her that I was ready to read harder books and do math exercises with the 2nd graders. Something about always being done with my worksheets first, blowing through entire books in the time it took others to read a chapter, correcting the 2nd graders when they made a mistake while reciting times tables, etc...

Boy, did the rest of the kids (except 2 of the other 1st grade girls) hate me/us!

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

Hey, more power to you, if you could do the work and the teacher would let you!