I recently read that a teacher of mine in junior high school had gone on to become a principal somewhere else, was now retired and teaching as an adjunct in the education dep’t of a university. And I realized that I’d never known his first name, and actually it wasn’t what I’d thought it would be. And I’m sure back then I had wondered about it.
You see, teachers never used their first names with us. It was always Miss, Mrs. or Mr. And therefore what the first name was would become an enduring topic of speculation. Was he/she a this, a that—different name possibilities would somehow shed a different light on the imagined personality of that teacher.
Eventually of course, one student would spy a piece of mail or something telltale and the coveted missing link would be apprehended, then immediately disbursed throughout the classroom. It might even be laughed about.But no matter how close or how far to what I and other kids might have imagined, it would somehow define the teacher in a new way.