I once turned in an essay on "Their Eyes Were Watching God" and I must confess that it was one of many essays written in the dead of the night hours before my paper was due. When else would I write it? I thought my work was fairly decent, full of bullshit of course, but decent. Passable. I used big words and placed commas where they needed to be. I expected a good grade. Why wouldn't I? The paper was good. Not excellent, but good. Not my best work, but good. I received my graded paper back the next day. It had nothing but a "No!" in red Sharpie at the top. "You know better, Ms. Solon." she said peering at me through her glasses.
That was just how she was. She didn't deal with your bullshit cause she can see it from first glance, and she'll call you out on it. She addressed us by Ms. or Mr. and by our last names. She treated us like adults, even though very few of us were of age. She let us have the choice to leave if we were bored or didn't want to be there, because the last thing she wants is an uninterested student. She expected excellence from every single one us, even those for whom English wasn't their first language. "You chose to be in an AP class, be an AP student." She would say. As a result, we acted like adults, or as how we thought adults acted. We were polite, and respectful. We read our assignments not because we were told to, but because she's right, we chose to be where we were. We had intelligent and engaging discussions about English literature. She gave us different ways to think about Hamlet, allowed us to probe through the characters and get to the bottom of the whys. She took us through the adventures of the Iliad and gave many of what we read meaning and purpose and showed us why they matter.
What made her unique was that she was brilliant. She knew her books, she knew her authors. She had a Ph.D. from Princeton and was often away for conferences and other seemingly important things. So we questioned why the hell is she teaching in a ghetto-ass high school where half of the kids probably wouldn't go to college. She would tell us that it was because she came from a high school similar to this, and that she once had a teacher that was also over-qualified by the normal standards and who inspired her to dream as high as she could. We once talked bout her love life, her husband had passed many years ago, and we asked if she was looking for another partner. She told us, that she was not interested. He was her soulmate, and the time they spent together was enough. She was the most intelligent, and inspiring teacher that I have ever known. Most importantly, she taught me the most important lesson I've ever learned: never expect praises for half-assed efforts.
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