Tuesday, September 26, 2017

A MEMORY THAT MATTERS....


Note:  I recently read of a book by Jefferson A. Singer whose premise is to teach a person how to use self-defining memories in his/her personal story which will help define "the real you".  This is one memory that I have reflected on many times in my life.  And I recognize this experience as one that literally changed me and made the "real" me.  I shared it in the NICHOLS FAMILY NEWSLETTER MAY 2006, but in case you forgot or never had a chance to read it....here it is as it was originally  published!

WORDS OF WISDOM…There are times in our lives when  the right words spoken at the right  moment can transform us.  They  challenge us at a crossroads, carry us through times of sorrow, or dare us to action.  This is the story of one of Momma G’s transformations.

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I had dreamed of being a teacher ever since I was a little girl.  And, after I had Mildred Chaffin for Sophomore English at Rawlins High School, I solidified that dream into one of being a high school English teacher.  Mildred Chaffin was from Iowa,  a thin, unattractive woman with a sharp nose and nondescript “dishwater blond” hair.  It was long, thick, dry and usually unstyled and bushy. She had the husky voice of a chain smoker and always wore sling back high heels with open toes (even when it was cold and snowy) which produced a loud staccato as she walked purposefully down the hall or in her classroom.  Mrs. Chaffin didn’t smile often, and her voice was not pleasant but abrupt and to the point.    She wasn’t the sort of teacher to whom adolescents gravitated, nor did she seem popular with the other teachers and staff, though she was married to the good-looking and affable man who was the head bus driver and in charge of all school transportation. 

For the entire first semester of Sophomore English Mrs. Chaffin seemed harsh and demanding, far  beyond 15/16 year old capabilities, it seemed.  But I was in an accelerated class (now they call them GT) and much was expected of us.  I worked hard for my grades, as I didn’t want to be the target of her critical comments.  And Mrs. Chaffin knew English—backwards, forwards, inside out. (That was the year we did Silas Marner. I made Grandma Huggins sew the clothes for the character Nancy Lammeter as my special term project.  Remember? I showed you the doll with those special outfits still in its gold cardboard case just the way I submitted it for grading.) 

Truthfully, I was kind of afraid of Mrs. Chaffin, yet grew to admire her and appreciate her special talent for making us want to learn about the English language.  She set her standard the first semester, and when the second semester rolled around we were disciplined enough that she began to loosen up and actually joked around with us.  I became excited for that period each day to see what she was going to present and how innovative her presentation was. 10th grade English was a great warm up for those of us lucky enough to be in it, because Mrs. Chaffin taught English to everyone in the 12th grade.  So, we had her again a couple of years later.  It seemed seniors dreaded English class each year after having heard the stories from those who had experienced Mrs. Chaffin’s expectations in previous years.  However, my accelerated class had the advantage of already knowing what she was like and what she expected.  We lost no time picking up where we had left off as sophomores.  12th grade English was geared to more sophisticated learning as we explored “Macbeth” and Les Miserables, and much more advanced grammar and writing skills.


 When I was a senior, I was president of my high school’s chapter of Future Teachers of America.  That organization gave its members an opportunity to do some “student teaching”.  I selected Mrs. Chaffin’s current, accelerated 10th grade English class to “show my stuff”.  Mrs. Chaffin was full of praise for my ability and seeming talent to draw out the class in discussion.  It was a heady experience to be in front of other students and lead them into avenues of language exploration and learning.  I was exhilarated and anxious to begin my college career so I could be a “real” teacher.

 
When I arrived at Brigham Young University in September 1964, I declared English as my major and set about designing my schedule for the four years ahead.  By taking a history exam worth three credit hours, I had all general requirements behind me by the second semester of my BYU sophomore year. 



As I returned to Provo for my junior year at BYU, I began that long-awaited Teacher Education 301B—the beginning class for high school teaching certification.  And….I HATED it!  It wasn’t at all like I had imagined.  We started out with something they called “Maeger Objectives”.  It was this complicated formula of classroom goal setting, I think. (Comparable to all the theorems of solid geometry which I was never able to master either.)

To this day I do not know what THAT had to do with teaching (the University dropped that approach a few years later).  I only knew I wanted to be in front of a class and teach ideas and mechanics, not be bound by performance objectives that didn’t teach ANYTHING!  I felt like the profession I had always wanted held no promise for me.  It seemed like it would be more like being in a prison of my own choosing.  I expressed my disappointment to roommates and family, and was met with statements much like this, “You’d better certify to teach anyway.  You’ll need something to fall back on in case you can’t get a job.  You can always get a job as a teacher.”



As those first few weeks of classes came and went, I became more and more discouraged about the choice I had made and seriously wondered if I could stand being a teacher doing something that satisfied a curriculum requirement with no potential for personal satisfaction. 



Midterms came, and my test score was far from a stellar performance.  I was bummed enough as it was when I saw my posted grade.  Then I got a note from the professor that he wanted to visit with me.  I was sure I was going to get the same “pressure” talk about the need to improve so I could certify.  I wasn’t looking forward to meeting with him.



Timing of the appointment couldn’t have been worse.  Oh, the weather was gorgeous.  It was a beautiful Fall day on campus.  However, the night before, the guy I was crazy about had told me he wasn’t crazy about me.  What an emotional blow!  And that morning I had exchanged some cross words with my roommate Ann  Boyd whom I really had a hard time tolerating, let alone liking.  Then on top of all that, I got back to the campus parking lot after my first class only to find a parking ticket on my car. 



By the time I got to Professor Lyal Holder’s office, I was a wreck.  He began the interview by saying, “I perceive you are not happy in this class.”  All of the frustrations of six weeks of class and the previous 24 hours caught up with me as I started to cry and tried to get myself under control.  I was sure Brother Holder was going to come down hard on me now!



Instead, he opened his desk drawer and took out a box of Kleenex, patted me on the arm and said, “When you are finished, we’ll talk.”  With that the floodgates opened, and I began to bawl in earnest.  I sobbed and cried while the tears streaming down my cheeks mingled with the snot from my runny nose.  I couldn’t seem to stop!  What a sight I must have been.  Messy mascara was rapidly turning my eyes into a raccoon mask. (This was the 60’s with HEAVY eye makeup!)



Brother Holder motioned for his assistant and asked him to go to the classroom where the professor was scheduled to teach that hour and indicate there would be no class that day.  Then he sat patiently while I slowly regained some semblance of composure.



My story spilled out.  No, I wasn’t happy.  It wasn’t what I thought teacher training was going to be like, and I no longer wanted to be a teacher.  I had come to abhor the idea of being chained to a classroom with rigid guidelines and papers to correct—all using that “Maeger Objective”.  But everyone seemed to be pushing me to “certify”—that magic safety net for unsuccessful job hunters. 



Truly, I thought Brother Holder was going to give me the same pep talk.  Instead he said, “Georgia, if you can’t be the kind of a teacher you would like your children to have, then don’t be a teacher.”  He paused, “What would you rather do?”



I was shocked, to say the least!  Here was a legitimate way out of my dilemma with authoritarian approval.  I thought for a few moments then told him I had always loved libraries.  Thus it was that, instead of becoming a teacher, I became a librarian.  And, the rest is history.  I graduated on May 30,1968, from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English with a Library Science minor. 

I arrived in Denver on August 31, at the end of that summer.  Three days later I found a job as a Library Assistant III at Bibliographical Center for Research, whose offices were on the third floor of the original Denver Public Library building at 13th and Broadway.  “Bib Center” was a research library, one of three like it in the country. 

I loved the work I did as it often involved sleuthing for book titles from cryptic clues the patrons would furnish (though I didn’t care for the micromanagement of the Supervisor and Director).  I stayed in that employment until six weeks before Harold was born.  (At that time pregnant women had to quit work two months before the baby’s due date, but Harold was born early.)  It was the good result of that tearful confession with a teacher who truly had a sense that his student wasn’t cut out to be a high school English teacher.



Through the years as I have served in teaching callings in the auxiliaries of the Church, I have come to know that teaching IS one of my gifts. But that gift would never have blossomed in the public education system of the late sixties. 

Brother Holder’s words that fateful day challenged me at a crossroads in my life.  They gave me direction to move forward and not feel guilty about changing my long-held dream, but to grasp a different dream that would lead me to greater fulfillment and satisfaction.


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