If you were lucky, you had a teacher who flicked on the light bulb and alerted you to the universe of wonder and learning. And if so, that one person made all the difference in your education. For me, it was my 11th grade English teacher. Her name was Beth Schneiderman, and I still remember her first day: “It’s Sch-nei-der-man. Four syllables, three letters each.” Not that we really needed to know that—but it’s forever seared in my brain. She was short, with long dark hair, and she wore hippy clothes that barely passed muster in our conservative girls’ school. There was nothing warm, fuzzy, or earth mother about Mrs. Schneiderman. She was the grouchy side of Mr. Chips. She was there to teach some spoiled-brat teenagers English, and making friends wasn’t on her to-do list. She meant business.
Early in the semester, I turned in my book report on The Scarlet Letter. A few days later, I heard the dreaded, “Please stay after class, Christy.” Then Mrs. Schneiderman calmly informed me that my writing was horrible and that she’d do what she could to bring it back from the abyss. From that day forward, I was to write an essay every night about whatever I wanted. It could be a page or a paragraph. But I had to write until I got it right.
I don’t remember my immediate reaction, but I suspect it was horror. A pretty lousy student, I was anything but industrious. Still, I lived in perpetual fear of the wrath of an adult, so I did the assignment. Nightly. Before too long, I found myself looking forward to that time around 9 that I slipped on my Lanz flannel nightgown, sprawled out on the living-room floor of our University City house with a sharpened Wallace No. 2 pencil in hand, and churned out my essay.
Some of these screeds dripped with adolescent angst; some ranted against the cruelty of other teenagers or society as a whole; some were pedantic attempts to decipher a piece of fiction; a few were mere recitations of the mundane events in my life. Ever so slowly, the rules started to click into place, and the sentences began to flow. Writing was something I could do, I realized with a jolt. And I truly loved doing it.
Mrs. Schneiderman moved to another city; I traded my pencil for a computer. But I’m still writing, and I’m still incredibly grateful to that one teacher’s dedication and determination. You can bet the family farm that I wouldn’t be doing what I do if she’d never given me that nightly assignment.
As we have found in the entries for the first St. Louis Family Excellence in Education awards, our city’s packed with outstanding educators. We are thrilled to applaud them, and to bring their dedicated work to your attention. There is no more important job. We’re sorry for the long hours, low pay, and often difficult circumstances the profession too often entails. But we are thrilled that these fine teachers are in St. Louis classrooms, changing lives.
