Student-Teacher Reunion

I'm going to admit it. I was for the most part a teacher's pet -- but not in an annoying Martin Prince way -- and I have always treasured my longterm relationships with my favorite teachers, one of whom was younger than I am now when I took her seventh-grade journalism class. Last weekend, I had the rare opportunity to meet my 11th-grade English teacher, Peggy Hall, for the first time in nine years, when she and another retired teacher caught up with me on their trip to Washington D.C.

And yet even after 14 years of post-graduation friendship, I still don't feel right calling my teacher by her first name. There I was, sitting in Kramerbooks' Afterwords Cafe with my three-month-old strapped to my chest, and I felt 16 again. I'm 31, a mother of three, the bearer of many a gray hair, but this 66-year-old woman transports me to my junior year, when I was excited to learn about authors like Barabara Kingsolver, Robertson Davies and Edith Wharton in her class. After all, Ms. Hall was one of the many reasons I went on to major in English and Comparative Literature.

It's fair to say I'm in awe of this woman who gets up at 6 o'clock in the morning to write poetry every day. She writes about classroom memories, politics, culture, feminism, motherhood. For her son's 40th birthday, she wrote a poem remembering his teenage angst and asking him to forgive her occasional "maternal sins" like "benign neglect." She ended the poem reminding new mothers that no matter what we do, our children will be who THEY want to be, not who we force them to become. In the era of micromanaging helicopter parents, I found this sentiment refreshing.

As I sat across the table from Ms. Hall, I couldn't stop myself from daydreaming about my own children's future experiences with their teachers. My six-year-old son had just graduated from kindergarten a week earlier, I recounted. I told him that he would never forget his teacher's name, just like I could still remember my own kindergarten teacher's name, and the names of all my important teachers.

"What if I forget, Mama?" he had asked. "Don't worry, you won't," I promised.

So this summer, as we shuttle our kids from summer camps to pool clubs to road trips and other vacations, I want to pay tribute to the teachers who will help, encourage and inspire our children during the school year. The teachers who like Ms. Hall and the late Tim Russert's beloved Sister Lucille will influence our kids decades beyond their years in a classroom.

Original DC Metro Moms post. When she's not waxing poetic about her favorite teachers, Sandie blogs at Urban Mama