An Awkward Silence
Five days later, when Mrs. Roberts came back, she didn’t hum as she came down the hall, but otherwise she acted as if nothing unusual had happened.
“Turn to page 97,” she ordered in her usual brisk voice. The sound of rustling pages seemed amplified by the awkward silence. Finally, two girls in the front row stepped up to her desk and one of them stammered, “Mrs. Roberts, we — we’re really sorry about what happened.”
Her face contorted, Mrs. Roberts failed in her struggle for control and dropped her head on her desk, her shoulders heaving. The two girls gently patted her back as the rest of us watched helplessly.
When she at last regained some composure, she wiped off her glasses, looked at us and said, “I’m sorry. I thought I could handle this on my own, but I see now that I can’t. You’ll just have to bear with me for a while.”
Our Need Is Not Our Weakness
The tension was dissolved in a chorus of reassuring voices. “That’s okay, Mrs. Roberts. Don’t worry about us.”
“All right,” she said, putting back her glasses along with her best no-nonsense voice. “Let’s get back to dangling participles.”
That was the day that woke most of us to the strange notion that grown-ups could be vulnerable, too. Students often gathered around Mrs. Roberts between classes. Sometimes she would show them her husband’s picture, which she kept in a locket around her neck. Tears became less frequent, but when they did slip out, someone would murmur an encouraging word.
Mrs. Roberts was a rare teacher. She taught us to be better writers. Even now, when I write, I can hear her crisp voice: “If it isn’t necessary, cross it out.” More important, though, she taught us that our need for each other is not our weakness, but rather our strength. After all, when something is crossed out, that which remains means more than ever.
Excerpted from Stories for a Teacher's Heart © 2002 compiled by Alice Gray. Used by permission of Multnomah Publishers, Inc. Excerpt may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of Multnomah Publishers, Inc.
(“The Lesson” by Teresa Olive © 2000. Used by permission of the author.)
Over Forty? Too Ancient!
Her recent marriage had surprised most of us, since we “mature” high schoolers considered anyone over forty too ancient for such things as romance. However, her newly acquired habit of humming in the halls indicated that she had adjusted quite well to married life. In fact, some of the seniors grumbled that we sophomores had it easy compared to what her classes had been like before she hummed in the halls.
It isn’t that she was mean; it’s just that she seemed to expect the impossible. A lot of us lacked in ability to write a decent paragraph, and Mrs. Roberts intended to change that state of affairs.
We dissected Newsweek and Time articles as if they were frogs in biology class. But our daily assignments were still returned with more red ink than black — most of it used to cross out words, phrases, even entire paragraphs. “Unnecessary” and “overly descriptive” words were Mrs. Roberts’s enemies, and she attacked them ruthlessly.
In spite of our complaints, though, we really liked Mrs. Roberts. She didn’t teach English as a way to make a living. She taught it because she was committed to it — and to us. She was determined to push us out of our cozy nest of complacent ignorance, knowing we were meant to fly.
Then one day she was absent. The whispered news spread across the room: Mrs. Roberts’s husband had been killed in a car accident by a drunk driver who had veered into his lane, hitting him head-on.
