What Teachers Do You Remember?

~ By Vonnie Davis

I was blessed to have the same English teacher for both my sophomore and senior years of high school, back in '64 and '66. Miss Campbell was a walking grammar force. A compact lady, she always wore a suit, a matching three-strand set of beads, and thick heels. Her class was ruled with her iron-clad-pursed lips. She stalked the aisles between the desks, beads rattling in her fingers and looking down her nose at us as she barked grammar rules.

Heaven help you if you slouched in your chair or came to her class with a pencil that needed sharpening or didn't have neatly written homework ready to turn in. She suffered no fools.

Back then, we diagramed sentences and learned the structure and meaning of every word contained within one.

Miss Campbell with a fuzzy head of red hair owned an ugly faded brown suit she wore only on days she planned to spring a surprise quiz on us. Word quickly spread through the halls. "Quick! Study! Campbell's wearing that nasty brown suit." We were all trembling with nerves when we walked into her room. The map was pulled down to cover the precisely written quiz on the blackboard. And when she zipped that map up, you had ten minutes of brain-wracking hell ahead of you. While I remember all she taught me--and it was a lot--I never saw her smile.

My son, a language arts teacher, operates by a rule: Never let your students see you smile until after Christmas. His students call him Professor Shubert. He puts on a demonstration the first day of school. A 5th degree black belt, he sets up a concrete block display to break with his hand.


Then he glares at his students and tells them there will be no disciplinary problems in his class. He tells them his room is a safe zone. No one gets to them unless they go through him. Some days he plays his guitar with raps he's made up with grammar rules. He has them place their chairs in a circle and he teaches by the Socrates method to encourage them to think on a deeper level. Every year he's voted the best teacher at the school.

Oh, he can be cranky. His room is his domain. He teaches his way. His students score high. And he expects to be left alone. He's happy his classes have not been audited or evaluated in three years, although he did ask the principal to sit in on one of his Socrates sessions to show him how this ancient method could work with 7th and 8th graders.

To Steve's delight, the students asked the principal questions, too, forcing him to join in the discussion. The administrator found Steve's students quiet, respectful, engrossed in the subject matter, and doing well. This included the lower-ranked classes Steve had emotionally built up by telling them no one thought they could learn this way. But he had faith in them. They snatched onto his faith and excelled. Steve believes in teaching up, not teaching down.

Steve and my high school junior granddaughter. She attends the Maryland School of the Arts for vocal music and theory.

Allison Moore the heroine in NIKO: Licensed to Kill is a high school Art teacher. I wonder what impression she makes on her students? Is she strict or open to new teaching styles? Boring or engaging?

EXCERPT FROM NIKO: LICENSED TO KILL ...

While the young man wasn’t blatantly tall, he was excessively male. Sex appeal oozed from every pore on his skin. Alyson’s body responded, which surprised her. She’d thought that part of her body long dead after a near sexless marriage.

With the firm and muscled, yet slender build of many European men, she judged him to be around thirty. He had an olive complexion and short, wavy black hair styled like that of a GQ model. His eyes were dark and angry.

What’s his problem? I’m the one held here against my will, hungry and thirsty. And, dammit, I have to pee.

The older man sat while Macho Male prowled the room like a tightly-reigned panther.

“Ms. Moore, I’m Field Supervisor Henri Moreau. I head the French task force on counterterrorism. The irritated man behind me is my second in command, Niko Reynard.”

The young man deigned to spare her a nod in greeting. Oh, she knew the type.

She nodded once in return with a dose of her own attitude. After all, she hadn’t been a teacher all these years without perfecting a piercing glare. One of his dark eyebrows quirked in response and a corner of his mouth quivered for an instant as if he were a heartbeat away from laughing at her. She hiked her chin and held eye contact with him for a few seconds.

Touché.

Okay, so she was being bitchy, but after all she’d been through today, frankly she didn’t give a crap.

“We’ve reviewed the Louvre’s security tapes and completed a thorough background check on you.” Moreau flipped open a manila file. “You’re a high school art teacher from Asheville, North Carolina. Went to university at Duke. Additional studies in New York City. Worked for two years at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.” His head nodded as he cited her life’s history, almost as if it were nothing more than another series of boring facts—which unfortunately it was.

“You’ve been teaching art for thirteen years. Married for twelve. No children.” His gaze rose to hers. “You’re recently divorced. Your husband…”

“Ex-husband.” She crossed her arms and sat back in her chair. She may have to put up with this interrogation, but she didn’t have to like it. Nor did she appreciate having strangers inventory her personal life, no matter how damn boring it was.

He spared her the briefest of smiles. She closed her eyes, sensing what was coming next. “Your ex-husband is now living an openly gay lifestyle--"

A wounded sound escaped from her chest, her broken heart giving one last whimper of pain, perhaps. Robert had hurt her so badly.

Macho Male stopped pacing behind his partner and nudged him with his elbow. “Gentillesse, Henri.”

"Of course, one must always be gentle." The older man glared at her. "If it is appropriate."

 

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BOOK TWO... JEAN-LUC: Once is Never Enough releases June 13th.  

A Tale of Two Feet by Betsy Ashton

I admit it. I'm awkward. I'm clumsy. I trip everywhere. Going up stairs. Going down stairs. On the flowers in the carpet. Blame it on my horoscope.

Let's take a quick look at sun signs. My sun sign is Capricorn. That fits. Earth mother. My moon is in Scorpio. Makes me moody. And my rising sign is Pisces. Pisces rules the feet. Not very well, I might add.

I was clumsy from the time I was a child. My mother saved tons of money on dance lessons. Two left feet would have been better than what I had. I didn't excel in anything resulting in balance until I learned to ride a horse. Then, I learned about rhythm, balance and fluid movements. My awkwardness declined as I became a better rider. My travails on horseback are best left for a different post.

I once tripped and launched a tray of cocktails at a table in a swanky yacht club. I was the waitess with the "Oh, Miss" name tag. I'd complained about a rip in the carpet for a few Saturdays. I warned the manager it was a trip waiting to happen. The trip happened. To me. Let's not go into detail but I will admit that the six people at the table were not amused to be wearing a variety of drinks. Not amused at all.

Have you ever been tripped by a wad of gum? I have. I stepped onto a large piece of what felt and looked like bubble gum on a sidewalk in Manhattan. New York, not Kansas. Down I went. I know that gum wad shaped itself into a hand, grabbed my ankle and flung me to the concrete. No one saw the hand, but I know it was there.

I've broken eight of my toes over the course of years. So far, the big toes are still in tact, but the others have suffered from tripping, kicking furniture or being stomped on by my horse.

I broke my right ankle and walked around on it for six weeks before it hurt so much I had to go to the doctor. The lecture he gave me reminded me why orthopedists aren't my favorite doctors. How did I break it, you ask? I fell off a sneaker out walking one morning at dawn. Rolled off a stone and down four inches of pavement to the dirt on the edge of the road. Sigh. I was so embarrassed.

Gradually, I became more sure footed, but only if I paid extra attention to where I put my feet. I still look down rather than out when I walk. I hold onto stair railings going up as well as down, since I'm more likely to trip going up. Don't know why. Just sayin'.

You can understand why I faced this topic of falling with trepidation. Oh hell, with terror. I didn't want to confess how incredibly clumsy I am. So I won't.

###

Betsy Ashton is the author of Mad Max Unintended Consequences available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The second book in the series, Uncharted Territory, will be released in June 2015. She lives for words and writing.

Awkward Moments

By Jannine Gallant

Did you know that March 18 is Awkward Moments Day? Neither did I, but when I checked out March’s list of funny observances and saw it there in black and white, I couldn’t resist. Who out there hasn’t had an awkward moment? I know I’ve had my share.

The awkward moment at a party when you pop a whole appetizer in your mouth just as someone asks you a question.

The awkward moment when you say, “Thank you, sir,” and later discover the helpful clerk in the hardware store was a woman.

The awkward moment when you’re introduced to someone and can’t remember their name two minutes later.

The awkward moment when you notice the man you’re talking to didn’t zip it up all the way, but you have no excuse for looking that low.

The awkward moment when you realize no one liked or commented on your last Facebook update.

If you didn’t cringe a little reading these, then you’re far more socially graceful than I am! It also occurred to me that awkward moments play well in fiction. What reader can’t relate when your poor heroine walks out of the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to her shoe? In my most recent book, Bittersweet, there is a scene involving my heroine cooling off in the creek in her chemise when near tragedy strikes. After the commotion is over, she discovers her wet chemise revealed a whole lot more than it covered, and she is unbearably mortified. Even women in 1880 had wardrobe malfunctions. LOL

Let’s hear about your awkward moments – real or fictional. Don’t turn my blog into another awkward moment…

For information on Bittersweet and my other books, check these sites.

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