My fourth grade class was kind of like the Little Rascals, or The Goops by Gillette Burgess. We got that way, I posit, because we had a mean, angry teacher who had no control and hit us with rulers.
It was like she expected us to be terrible and so we were. Now this couldn't be true, but I remember being left to ourselves as a class for days on end where we were running around yelling and climbing on desks (not me, I was always the quiet, studious sort) — although to our credit, we did manage to make sock puppets during this time.
And then, one day, we heard that we were getting a new teacher. Mrs. Crabtree! The dread. Just like the Little Rascals! Even more than we knew.
Because when Mrs. Crabtree appeared … she practically glided into the room. And seemingly instantaneously, order was restored. For all intents and purposes, she was Mary Poppins: strict but not mean, pretty in a restrained kind of way, nurturing but never fawning – truly 'practically perfect in every way' to me.
Including her clothes.
She had short-cropped wavy hair, frosted in the way that was so popular in the '60s. And her outfits fascinated — tweedy looking suits stylishly cut, billowy blouses, dangly earrings. She had soft, rounded features that broke easily into a warm smile, but when she looked serious, the clock stopped. She was like no teacher I'd ever seen. And I was riveted.
She read to us – read to us! – stories, the poems of Ogden Nash, Alfred Noyes' The Highwayman... (That day she wore a blouse with full pleated sleeved that stopped abruptly at extra long cuffs fastened with little pearl buttons.) I felt swept along with the torrent of wind to a land of rhythm and romance and mystery.
My journalistic impulse led me to seek corroboration on my recollections. So I emailed my friend Donna who now lives in Colorado with her family, but we've somehow managed to stay in touch over the decades since grammar school!
Most of my clear memories of 4th grade start with Mrs. Crabtree — whom I loved!!! Yes, I do remember we all fell in line as if she had us under a spell — she was perfectly orderly… accepted nothing less than perfect discipline and everyone obeyed her and loved her (or maybe I loved her so much that I expected that everyone else did also). …and she never wore the same outfit twice. I was in awe of her wardrobe!"
See that?!
In a recent New York Times article, Nicholas Kristof observed:
Until a few decades ago, employment discrimination perversely strengthened our teaching force. Brilliant women became elementary school teachers, because better jobs weren't open to them. It was profoundly unfair, but the discrimination did benefit America's children."
This must've been true here (I was lucky to have a few extraordinary teachers in my young life), but Mrs. Crabtree was special in a distinct way.
Slightly tangential to these reminiscences, I was pondering whether to purchase: Courtly Love Undressed: Reading Through Clothes in Medieval French Culture (The Middle Ages Series) and came across this snippet in a review:
Burns's book also reflects and adds to recent feminist rethinking of clothing's capacity to empower women."—Speculum
I think Mrs. Crabtree fanned the flames of an already nascent love of poetry, and reading and writing in general, but even more than that, she somehow imparted a subliminal triumvirate of empowerment, perspective and inspiration that allowed a love of learning from a feminine perspective. As Shakespeare says, "It's all one."
Teachers are a special breed. And having an array of different ones is just as important as having one, or a few, special ones who see a particular potential in you.
You never know what is going to ignite the imagination of a child — or an adult for that matter. I am grateful to Mrs. Crabtree for showing me myriad ways that personal style can have an impact and be a creative force in our lives.
Related stories: The Past & Future Lives of Sarah Jessica Parker