Inspired by a Teacher
One year during
an in-service at the beginning of school, the administration showed a film called
The Zero. It was about a middle
school boy who stepped off the school bus, laid down in the snow, and died. Not
one teacher remembered him, even though he had gone to the school since
kindergarten. Watching that film, I saw myself. I was a barely above average
student even though I was far more capable. It never occurred to me that if I
studied, my B average could be higher. My behavior was appropriate. I was quiet
and reserved. The only thing I was reprimanded for was reading in class instead
of completing an assignment. I doubt that any teacher would remember me. The
only teacher conference my parents had was in the fourth grade. Their concern?
I was not interested in anything except reading. The teacher’s answer? “She
will be fine. Don’t worry.”
I have very few
memories of school. Basically, school was uneventful for me. I moved from grade
to grade almost in a fog. I remember being nervous to go to junior high school,
but other than that my only significant memory was going to the library.
Junior high was as
uneventful as elementary school until the ninth grade. The ninth grade math
teacher, Mr. Mettetal, noticed me immediately. He liked me as a person and a
student. That was the first time any teacher had noticed me. He greeted me when
I walked in the room and took the time to talk to me when I completed my
assignments. The tone of his voice was different when he spoke to me. I felt
special for the first time. He recognized
that I was not working to my potential and proceeded to encourage me to do
better. Placing a test on my desk, he would say, “I expect a one hundred,
Theresa.” At that point my mind would go completely blank, and I would forget
everything he had taught. I wanted to please him and looked forward to going to
his class. For the first time a teacher’s opinion of me was important. I
excelled in his class, understanding all but one concept. When he taught
negative numbers, I could not comprehend the concept. In my mind there was
nothing below zero, so how could there be negative numbers? The other students
could not understand why I didn’t get it. I tell my students that it was before
I opened a checking account and now I understand it perfectly. The following
year I returned to the campus on Parent/Teacher night to visit Mr. Mettetal. He
said, “Are you making straight A’s? You could, you know.” I thought, No, I
didn’t know that. No one had ever
told me that. No one had ever recognized that I had the potential to make more
than average grades.
I proceeded
through high school the same way I had gone through elementary and junior high
school. I did excel in cosmetology my junior and senior year. I received my
state cosmetology license the week before graduation. Graduation was on Friday
night, and I went to work on Saturday morning, never intending to go to
college. A few months after graduation, I enrolled in a private cosmetology
school to obtain my teaching license. There I discovered how much I enjoyed
teaching.
Through a series
of events, I enrolled in a small Baptist college in January of 1972, majoring
in education. College was a struggle at times. If I did not understand
something and asked a question, I was told, “You should have learned that in
high school.” How could I explain that I went through school in a fog and
everything I learned was incidental? I learned to hide my ignorance and
research my questions in private.
In January 1973,
I left college to get married with the intention of entering the local
university where we would be living. My husband was not comfortable with the
idea of me attending the large university, and to keep peace in our home, I
decided not to enroll.
When our oldest
son was in the first grade, he told me about an incident that happened at
school that day. I felt that the way the teacher had handled the situation had
humiliated the other child. The Lord spoke to my heart it was time to do for
other children what one teacher had done for me. The next September I enrolled
our younger son in kindergarten, placed our daughter in daycare, and went back
to college. I had a desire to teach first grade because I wanted to help
children begin school on a positive note and feel good about themselves and
their accomplishments. The thought of a child being in school for nine or ten
years before feeling special was too difficult to bare.
College was much
easier this time. I was in classes three days a week. On Tuesdays and
Thursdays, after my husband left for work and the boys left for school, I
cleaned house and then began studying. Our daughter was a very quiet child. She
would lie on the floor coloring with crayons while I studied. By the time
everyone arrived home, I was finished being a student and ready to be wife and
mom again.
While I was in
college, the company who employed my husband conducted its second workforce
reduction in two years. This time my husband lost his job. To support us after
the job loss, he worked construction for a much lower rate of pay than we were
accustomed. We struggled my final year of college. I had been given a
scholarship from American Business Women of America for one semester. However,
every time I sat down in class to take a test, I would think, ABWA paid for this. I can’t let them
down. The added stress was not worth the scholarship, and I did not
apply for it my final semester. When I completed college, I was offered a job
teaching Early Childhood in Special Education. It was not the job I wanted. But
we needed a steady income, so I accepted the position.
Every year on
the first day of school, I prayed, Lord,
let me be an encouragement to at least one student this year like one teacher
was for me. Every year I seemed to fall in love with the student no one
else liked. I once read a thought in Our Daily Bread that so inspired me
I wrote it on a piece of paper and kept it on the wall behind my
desk. It said, “If they deserved our
love, they wouldn’t need our love.” I tried hard to live by that and
show love to the most unlovable child in the room.
The first year
of teaching was horrible. A kindergarten teacher decided to “help” me by
telling me exactly how to teach my class. Some of the things she told me to do
did not work with my special needs children, so I abandoned her ideas. She was
a person who felt the need for control and did not appreciate my lack of
enthusiasm. She began to make my life miserable by undermining my authority
with students and telling the staff incorrect information about me. , I was a
first year teacher who needed a lot of guidance, and went to the principal’s
office often to ask questions. Each time, after I had finished talking, he
would ask, “Is that all?” I would say “yes.” He would ask, “Are you sure?” I
never could understand why he asked me that. I wondered if my facial expression
was giving him the idea that I had something else to say and tried not to look
as confused as I felt.
The week before
Christmas break, I had reached my limit with the lies and cutting remarks. I
determined that when the students left at the end of the day, I would notify
the principal that I would not be returning after the holidays. At noon I told
one of the students that it was time to go to the nurse’s office for his
medication. As he got to the door, he turned to me and said, “Mrs. Franklin, I
love you.” He opened the door, took one step out and turned back to me and
said, “Mrs. Franklin, thank you.” Conviction gripped my heart. I felt like the
Lord was saying, “I didn’t put you here for the teachers or administrators. I
put you here for the students, and you cannot leave them.” People have asked me
why the student was thanking me. I say, “I don’t know. It didn’t matter. It was
the Lord’s way of letting me know that I was where I belonged.”
