Teachers
I was thinking of school teachers the other day; particularly the ones who strongly influenced my life. Two come to mind right away, for very different reasons.
In grade 7, and again in grade 11, I had an English teacher named Joyce Balfour. She was a tiny fireball of a thing who loved to dance (she used to do the highland fling at school talent shows) and she was very passionate about poetry and literature. I found her very infectious - by grade 11 she had inspired me to try my hand at poetry, and while I wasn't very good, she encouraged me all the way. She would always tell me about poetry readings that were coming up at near-by Acadia University, she took me aside after school to work with me on my writing. She was just great.
Several years back, I decided to write her a letter thanking her and telling her what a wonderful teacher I thought she had been. She wrote back her own note of thanks, bringing me up to date on the goings on of some of my other former teachers and telling me she was about to retire. She sounded so disillusioned about teaching - I was quite taken aback and rather sad. It's so true that teaching is a burn out job. I'm in awe of anyone who can do it for any length of time and be good at it.
The other teacher who influenced me was Mr. Hayward. He taught grade 9 geography and was probably the most creative teacher I have ever had. He played Fagan in our school musical Oliver and looked the perfect person for the role.
He had us remember the location of all the countries in Europe by visualizing them to look like certain things - for instance, the countries of Eastern Europe were in the shape of a duck: Poland the duck's head, Czechoslovakia the duck's bill, etc. To this day I think I could sit down and draw the European landscape without too much trouble because of him.
Unfortunately he had a dark side. He had a little room at the back of the classroom, and he used to take some of us girls in there one at a time, close the door, and show us photos of people engaged in oral sex. Then he'd ask us what we thought of that. I of course was grossed out and creeped out. I only went in that room once....after that I always found an excuse to be somewhere else.
I don't know why none of us girls told on him, but several years later I heard he was let go, so I guess someone finally ratted. I couldn't help feel sadness, because in spite of everything, the school had lost an amazing teacher.
7:13:27 AM 
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