Meeting Grade School or Middle School Teachers Years Later

[+ WilliamM]

OPINION

‘You wouldn’t believe the stuff we did’: 35 years later, Beverly Hills, PA Middle School teachers spill secrets | Maria Panaritis

Updated: March 23, 2019 - 5:00 AM

http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/maria-panaritis/

The Philadelphia Inquirer

 

 

OPINION

‘You wouldn’t believe the stuff we did’: 35 years later, Beverly Hills Middle School teachers spill secrets | Maria Panaritis

Updated: March 23, 2019 - 5:00 AM

http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/maria-panaritis/

 

 

 

 

Imagine you are at lunch with 19 of your former middle school teachers. One shows up with a 1984 grade book with your test scores in it. Another, who helped you make bullets in metal shop, talks about how he used to prank that social studies teacher now holding your grades. The science teacher who made batteries from salt water and tin foil sits genially among them all. It is loud. Orders are flying for French onion soup, chicken dumplings, french fries, apple sauce. Your head is spinning.

 

Are you dreaming? Are you dead?

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

I did meet meet my 3rd and 6th grade teachers many years later. They remembered my name, but not much else.

 

The 6th grade teacher was K. Shirley C....... Without my asking she told me her mother wanted to name her Shirley, but it was not a Catholic saints name. Her actual first name was Kathleen. The staff of the assisted living facility dislike her, The most common remark was why are you visiting her. And she did dominant the classroom. But when she became a principal, I understand, students would not see her entire personality.

 

Give a lot of credit to the person who wrote this article.

 

Anyone else?

[+ sam.fitzpatrick]

My second-grade teacher is a neighbor of my mothers, so I see her once or twice a year on visits back home. I occasionally hear from my high school German teacher, and another high school teacher married a friend from college (also a teacher) so I occasionally see them at my college homecoming.

[samhexum]

Meeting Grade School or Middle School Teachers Years Later

 

 

I know this doesn't count as meeting a former teacher, but from (almost) 16 until I got my license at 18, I took the subway into Manhattan to go to the gay porn theaters (in the days before AIDS). One day I looked up at the ads along the top of the subway car & saw my former junior high math teacher's name and face on a Preparation H ad.

 

I always thought she had a stick up her ass.

 

[+ nycman]

We invited our teachers to a private brunch reunion of the honor students from my high school.

 

It was cute. They stood on the front lawn and refused to come in until we all promised that....

 

"If we fucked up your life....you won't tell us".

 

We raise our hands and promised....several mimosa later....we all learned a great deal!

[samhexum]

She was young and as a result was every boy’s wet dream.

 

Umm... not every boy's, I'm sure.

 

[+ WilliamM]

Umm... not every boy's, I'm sure.

 

 

@samhexum , what's the purpose of the dancing boys? I am the OP. Can't you add something a bit more meaningful to this freaking tread?

[+ Topseed]

Many of my grade school teachers were Dominican nuns. No way do I want to revisit that.....

[samhexum]

@samhexum , what's the purpose of the dancing boys? I am the OP. Can't you add something a bit more meaningful to this freaking tread?

It was an attempt at a visual joke that some boys might not have been fantasizing about the female teacher. Sorry if it fell flat.

[+ Charlie]

Most of my elementary school teachers were 50+, so by the time I was old enough to be curious about meeting them again, it was too late. Ditto for middle school, but one of them was younger and transferred to my high school the year after I moved up, so I got to know her better. However, I never met her after I graduated. The only teacher whom I had post-graduation contact with was my high school history teacher, who married the daughter of neighbors of ours, with whom my parents were friendly into old age, so I followed his adventurous later life, but we never talked about the old days when I was a student.

 

Of course, the advent of the Internet allowed me to slake my curiosity about their lives before and after I was a student, and at one point I became obsessed with finding out more about them. For instance, I was surprised to learn that one woman was younger than I realized, and had married a Danish businessman who was a refugee from the Nazis, a backstory I had never imagined for her.

 

My mother's cousin retired from teaching elementary school at 50, when she married a widowed banker. She still had regular reunions with her former students until her death at 100.

[+ Pensant]

I had a social studies teacher who was also an alcoholic, and quite eccentric. He used to have some of his independent study students over to listen to classical music and drink pink Chablis. Lol. We saw him a few times during college. I remained friendly with another who wasn’t much older than me who, sadly, died of cancer too young. Other than that, I bumped into a handsome English teacher and his wife at the Wanamakers in Center City in my early 30’s. He still looked hot.

[Rudynate]

My grade school teachers are long dead. I didn't thrive in the early grades. I really detested school, didn't pay attention, and always felt like the teachers didn't like me. From grades 4-6, I had a succession of iron-fisted old maids who saw my potential and wouldn't accept anything but my best. Those ladies literally saved my ass.

[KeepItReal]

OPINION

‘You wouldn’t believe the stuff we did’: 35 years later, Beverly Hills, PA Middle School teachers spill secrets | Maria Panaritis

Updated: March 23, 2019 - 5:00 AM

http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/maria-panaritis/

The Philadelphia Inquirer

 

 

OPINION

‘You wouldn’t believe the stuff we did’: 35 years later, Beverly Hills Middle School teachers spill secrets | Maria Panaritis

Updated: March 23, 2019 - 5:00 AM

http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/maria-panaritis/

 

 

Some things are best left forgotten!