(photo from my high school yearbook a long, long time ago)
Growing up, I was a spoiled, lazy kid. Spoiled because I was the only boy in a Germanic family that bestowed such honors (and because I deserved it 😂, and possibly because I almost died as an infant. Lazy because I was allowed to be. I would go as far as skills and intuition would take me, then quit if I was actually challenged to learn something difficult. I was extolled for the things I did well, and given hall passes for the other stuff. Later in life, I discovered there were other elements at play, namely the genetics that made me a scatter-brain, my split persona, and mild ADHD.
The first adult who decided not to accept this, without understanding the causes, was my sixth grade teacher. He chose to beat me into submission with one use of a wood paddle, because that’s how it was done then.
The second took a tough love approach, and it stuck. Sister Carol was my 10th grade English teacher. She held me accountable at a sustained level, while introducing me to poetry and creative writing. The latter had never been nurtured before. My immigrant parents used English in a functional capacity, and that acceptably dovetailed into what I described above quite nicely. My father’s aspirations for me were to find a good job working for someone who would financially reward me, and that I’d be happy with that.
Sister Carol extracted more out of me in that one semester than anyone ever had by demanding my best while offering support and encouragement.This approach resonated with me, and my abilities grew from their abysmal state. At an age where I just wanted to disappear into the shadows, she gave me a light that let me be there comfortably, and to find my way back once I was ready.
A year later, when I took the SAT test, I scored an extremely high score in the mathematics section and horribly in the language section. But Sister Carol had instilled hope that I could do better, and the means to achieve that. What I learned from her was foundational for my career, my mentoring and tutoring, and late in life, my creative writing. I didn’t thank her nearly enough, and think of her often.