My first brush with gratitude came in elementary school when my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Scanlan,
suggested that if I was a mind to, I could stay after school and read in the library, putting off going
home for an hour or two. It was an unexpected kindness and while I had no idea how she knew how
reluctant I was to go home and I wasn’t brave enough to ask, I did take her suggestion. She was a
strict disciplinarian, taken to rapping the knuckles with a ruler of anyone who didn’t pay attention in
penmanship, and like all 4th graders, she intimidated me.
The school library was no more than an unused classroom with book shelf covered walls, a single
scarred table and four slightly unsteady wooden chairs but to me it was a gold mine of escape and
adventure, a quiet place to do my homework, and a safe haven. Mrs. Scanlan must’ve mentioned it to
my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Rankin, because the privilege was extended the next year but it was my 6th
grade teacher, Mrs. Arnold, who brought it all to life. Mrs. Scanlan and Mrs. Rankin were silver haired
and gruff, sisters who had been teaching since – as my grandmother used to say, “Before the flood”, a
mysterious phrase if ever there was one – both wore low heeled, sensible shoes and support hose, gold
rimmed glasses, and house dresses. In winter, they each added a neutral colored sweater held in place
by shiny sweater clips. For the time, they were both model teachers, prizing orderly classrooms and
inviolate seating charts, no crumbs with our graham crackers and milk, and homework turned in on
time and done neatly. You sat up straight in their classrooms, paid attention, didn’t whisper or pass
notes or squirm in your seat. There was no mercy for anyone defiant enough to throw a spitball, when
Steven O’Leary, the class bully tried, he found himself swiftly and unceremoniously drug by the scruff
of the neck to the principal’s office. This was an early lesson about consequences and we took it to
heart.
“Young ladies and gentlemen,” Mrs. Rankin announced the following morning, “Mr. O’Leary will be
spending the day at home today. It will give him and all of you the opportunity to review and reflect
on the behavior I expect from my class.”
We didn’t need to be told twice. The reckless had been scared clean out of us and we were grateful.
From the desk next to me, my friend Paulina flashed me a wicked grin. She was a chubby little thing
with olive skin, a frequent target of Steven’s and when I winked back to assure her I understood,
Mrs. Rankin abruptly cleared her throat and gave her desk a sharp rap with her ruler. It might have
been no more than my overactive imagination but I could’ve sworn she was trying not to smile.
And then, almost like magic, on one fine September morning, we became sixth graders and everything
changed. Neither Paulina nor I had ever imagined that Mrs. Buchanan – a trifle younger, stouter and
slightly more liberal then Mrs. Scanlan or Rankin – would ever really retire or that the new sixth grade
teacher was about to guide us through a life altering experience. Mrs. Arnold was shockingly young,
barely in her 30’s and not only pretty but fashionably dressed in sweaters and skirts and to the absolute
horror of more than one conservative parent, sometimes tailored trousers that flared when she walked.
Her handbag usually matched her high heel shoes and her makeup was delicate and lightly applied to
show off her nearly perfect skin. Her nails were kept manicured with clear polish and she favored a
single strand of rose tinted pearls and matching earrings, pierced, not the old school clip ons.
“Wicked!” Paulina whispered to me that first morning as we chose our random seats with our new
teacher looking on and smiling.
“Good morning,” she told us in a voice soft and just slightly southern, “I’m Mrs. Arnold. Welcome to
the sixth grade! Would each of you tell me your names, please?”
We watched in surprise and bewilderment as she took out a Polaroid camera and snapped our pictures
as we gave our names. She laid out each photo to dry then neatly printed our names on them and put
them in a plastic bag.
“I’ll know your names by tomorrow,” she announced cheerfully, “but for now you’ll need to bear with
me. Now…….,” and this with a warm and genuine smile, “What would you like to start with?”
Start with? No assigned seating? Pictures? All eighteen of us were slack jawed with shock until
finally a voice from the back spoke up.
“You mean we get to choose?”
“Well,” our new teacher glanced down at her day planner, “Within reason, of course. We have English,
Mathematics, Geography, History and Music Appreciation. We have to do them all but where we start
is up to you. Who has a preference?”
Preference? Even sixth graders knew that the idea of having an actual conversation with a teacher was
no less than preposterous. Why, the very idea of this type of classroom freedom was practically
Communism and we’d all done enough Duck & Cover drills to be fully suspicious of this approach.
Though our new teacher didn’t look like a spy, you never could tell. We were children who drank our
milk every day with Ike and recited the Pledge of Allegiance before every class – and come to think of
it, we hadn’t done that yet either, what was the world coming to? Oh, it was all too new and confusing.
We began to suspect that our new teacher was as my mother liked to say, some sort of outside agitator,
here to wreak havoc upon our beloved country.
“Wait until my parents hear about this,” Paulina whispered to me, “They’ll blow a gasket!”
“Mine’ll blow two!” I whispered back.
But Mrs. Arnold remained serene and when the same voice from the back called out, “Music
Appreciation!” she nodded and smiled.
“Who likes rock and roll?” she asked, reaching for a tape recorder and I thought we might all faint.
The world, however, did not go gray or come crashing down on us that particular September morning.
Mrs. Arnold taught with patience and genuine enthusiasm. She had a gift for involving and engaging
her students, a flair for creative and more modern teaching methods, a respect for her profession and
her charges that we’d never seen before. She fed our curiosity, inspired us with an eagerness to
learn, taught us an authentic and long term love of reading, instilled in each one of us a sense of pride
and self confidence. She knew all our names by her second day and inside of a month had found out
all kinds of things we didn’t talk about – she knew that my mother was an alcoholic, that Paulina’s
daddy was a day laborer and spoke little or no English, that Steven O’Leary had spent the entire
summer in juvenile detention and been forced to change schools, that Everett Smith was being raised
by his grandmother who cleaned offices at night to get by, and a host of other well kept, sixth grade
secrets. She found out and then used what she learned to draw us out ever so gently and slowly. She
was, so those in her very first class thought, a wonderful blend of compassion and innovation and we
loved her.
It was Mrs. Arnold who asked me to stay after one cool autumn day.
“American Bandstand can survive one day without you,” she said with a knowing smile. When
school let out, she and I walked the few blocks to Massachusetts Avenue and another two blocks north
past the Rexall Drug and the Woolworth’s Five & Dime and the tiny Italian sub shop, to the East
Arlington Branch Library.
“We’re getting you a library card,” she told me, “They’re open until 6 during the week and all day on
Saturdays and it’s up to you but I promise it’s a safe place and you’ll learn a lot more here than with
Dick Clark.”
It was another unexpected kindness, one what you might expect from a very good friend or a devoted
grandmother but certainly nothing that happened in my enabling, chaotic and sometimes wildly
ambivalent home. I hated to cry, especially in public, but there was no help for it and right there in
the small branch library, in front of God and everyone, as my Nana liked to say, I hugged my now
beloved teacher and let the tears flow. She hugged me right back, and after a moment or so, produced
a lavender scented handkerchief from her shoulder bag and gently wiped my eyes then tucked my new
library card into my pocket.
“Take good care of it,” she told me softly, “It’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
And it did.
Mrs. Arnold only taught that one year at our elementary school and moved on to where we never knew
but in that one year, she changed lives and opened our eyes. I never got to tell her what sixth grade
came to mean to me but I’ve always hoped she had some idea. To this remarkable teacher and all the
others that followed from junior high to high school to college, thank you. It would never have
happened without you.
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