I have a lot of harsh things to say about the public schools, things that need saying. But I also want to say that at least the teachers, once upon a time, were not a bunch of Far Left crazies. Some of them, if fact, were pretty cool.
Lately I’ve been remembering one of my high school English teachers, Miss H. She taught my mother’s generation and then mine. English Lit. When I think of all those years of herding balky teenagers through the desert of boredom that was Silas Marner, and across the ocean of tedium that was The Forsyte Saga–how ever did she stand it, year after year?
After all her decades in the harness, Miss H. was still an enthusiast! Really–she loved her work. Thousands of book reports she read, over the years. Thousands! And did she take the time to write comments in the margins? Of course she did–which was proof that she’d really read the freakin’ things.
I don’t know if there are any more like her today. But yes, Miss H., wherever you are–I can still recite those lines from Chaucer’s Prologue that you made us memorize. “Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote/ the drought of March hath perced to the roote…”