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A “witch” made me love reading and formed the foundation for my career.
When I walked into my high school sophomore English class, the teacher started by giving each student a long, hard stare into their eyes before saying anything.
“Last year at Halloween, someone put a broom outside my door. What I am only rhymes with witch.” It may have been the only time I ever saw 32 fifteen-year-olds sitting at their desks with their hands folded and their mouths closed.
But it was a lie. She was not a witch or even close to being one, but she knew how to start a new class.
Mrs. Margaret Hopkins influenced my life as no other teacher I can recall. Her first-day scare tactics taught me a lesson I would later utilize in my own teaching career. Her interest in each and every student as individuals, as real people and as someone she believed in, provided me the model of caring and involvement with students I would also use later in my life.
Research says that the single most important item in preventing a student from dropping out of high school “is the influence of a caring adult.” If Mrs. Hopkins was not familiar with that research, she certainly managed to demonstrate the principle behind it. Teachers saddled with 150 to 180 students in their classes every day have little opportunity to individualize instruction, but Mrs. Hopkins found a way.
Her real method of classroom control came from her genuine interest in each student and from her passionate love of the subject she taught.
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As a high schooler, I had few friends, too much IQ and a big mouth. Most of my schooling had provided me with boredom and frustration while I developed my smart aleck skills in every class. I knew every principal at every school I attended. Yet my IQ must have saved me because I retained information well, was able to apply it to real life situations and excelled in all my classes.
Mrs. Hopkins would not let a student be bored in her class. She had threatened to be a “witch with a ‘B’”, but her real method of classroom control came from her genuine interest in each student and from her passionate love of the subject she taught.
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She got to me when I moaned and groaned about having to read an assignment that did not appeal to me. Taking me aside, she discovered that I loved Roman history. The second “chapter book” I had ever read was a biography of Julius Caesar (homogenized. In spite of what I had read when I was young, he was not really a very admirable guy). With this information, Mrs. Hopkins challenged me.
“I want you to read this play by William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. If you like it, I will give you more and you can do class assignments based on those instead of the regular class stuff. If you don’t like it, I will let you skate.”What an awesome opportunity! Anyone could endure reading one short, horrible, boring 500-year-old play. I took her challenge.
And then, when I finished it and didn’t end up hating it after all. She gave me Henry IV, Part 1, then Twelfth Night, Hamlet and then Macbeth. But what she really gave me was a love of English that made it become my undergraduate major a few years later.
She also showed me what a wonderful teacher could do, what good teachers ought to do.
The next year in high school, I had another Ms. Hopkins, Ms. Mary Hopkins, Margaret’s daughter. The love of teaching and of English ran in the family. Ms. Mary Hopkins built on her mother’s work. Warned about me, no doubt, by her mother, she too provided “the influence of a caring adult.” She gave me Steinbeck and Hemingway, hooked me hopelessly and entirely on Mark Twain and even threw in a little Ray Bradbury.
I left high school, not by dropping out due to boredom, but energized toward my college major in English. I left college to be a teacher, a principal, an assistant superintendent for instruction, and a Leadership Consultant.
Having this chance to say something about my most inspirational teacher means a lot to me. I have often wanted to go back and find Mrs. Hopkins and thank her. She cannot possibly still be alive today, but her influence still lives in me. It influenced me in my work in schools and it has a lot to do with the stack of books waiting on my nightstand right now waiting to be read.
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