My Mount Rushmore

My Mount Rushmore

              In the fall of 1990 my family drove to Alaska, seventeen states and four Canadian provinces in three weeks.  One of the highlights for me was Mount Rushmore, a mind-boggling monument to four of our most prominent presidents.  A couple of weeks ago I read in the Chattanooga Times Free Press an article by Dr. Clif Cleaveland listing his Mount Rushmore of Teachers.  That got me thinking about the teachers I have had over a lifetime.  I have chosen my faces to put on Mount Rushmore.

              The first would be my third grade teacher, Mrs. Sywalka.  I thought she was very stern and intimidating and I was afraid of her.  But then she caught me with a book on top of a book.  I was reading the one I wanted to read and sliding up the book the class was reading together, just in time for my turn to read aloud.  To my humiliation she sent me to the cloak room as “punishment”.  I wept until I realized she had permitted me to bring my book with me.  So I read until called back into the classroom.

              Later Mrs. Sywalka kept me after class to give me a book wrapped in plastic.  I was to wash my hands before I took the book out of the plastic, then return it to the plastic when I was finished.  She exchanged that book for another until I had read an entire series, the Elsie Dinsmore series, in the original copies, at that time probably seventy years old. 

              Mrs. Sywalka understood a bored little girl who craved the knowledge available through books.  I think of her often as I look at the little drop-leaf desk she gave me and the scores of books around my house.

              The second figure on my Mount Rushmore would be Mr. Field, my ninth grade French and English teacher.  He was a brand-new teacher, a recent graduate from Harvard, and very hip.  He sat cross-legged on top of his desk, his tie (required by the school!) tossed over his shoulder.  He gave me a firm foundation in French (traditional formal pronunciation only), but his greater influence was on my writing.  Each week he assigned a topic for a paragraph of no more than seventy-five words.  The topics were imaginative and stimulating, for instance, how to ride a nightmare.  But to this teenage girl who loved words, his assignments were very difficult.  You see, he counted words before he graded.  If you had over the seventy-five-word limit, he didn’t even bother to grade the paragraph.   I loved verbosity, a gushing, flowery garrulousness.  I would write my paragraph, then start cutting.  I often had to cut out half of what I originally wrote in order to meet his requirements.  So when I write today, I cut, in honor of Mr. Field.

              The third figure on that mount would be Mrs. Harris.  She was my private speech teacher in college for two years, the time leading up to my senior speech recital.  Mrs. Harris was a stickler, by definition, “one who insists on something unyieldingly.”  Now that’s the word for Mrs. Harris.  She demanded excellence.  I frankly was terrified of her.  Her words often sent me back to the dorm in tears.  I once unwittingly failed to meet her expectations.  My notebook that day said in huge capital letters, “James 4:17, To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.  When I tell you to do something, don’t rebel!”  I slowly learned that what to me seemed unreasonable, was designed to draw my best from me.

              It is because of Mrs. Harris that I am today a college speech teacher.  She first persuaded me to change my major from interpretative speech to speech education with an interpretative proficiency, that while I insisted I didn’t want to be a teacher.  In addition, it was she who persuaded me to apply for graduate school for a master’s in interpretative speech.  You cannot get a job as a college teacher without a master’s degree.

              In graduate school came my fourth figure, Mrs. Edwards.  I had Mrs. Edwards in undergrad for two classes, but in graduate school she took her place on Mt. Rushmore.  If Mrs. Harris represented discipline and excellence, Mrs. Edwards represented compassion and excellence.  In addition to classes such as Advanced Interpretation of Poetry, Mrs. Edwards was my faculty advisor and private instructor for my graduate project, an hour-long monodrama, researched, written, memorized, and performed under her guidance.  Those two years were difficult for a number of reasons, but I had Mrs. Edwards.  She also insisted on excellence, but with a rare understanding of other things in my life.  She prayed with me, allowed me to weep, sympathized with me, then pushed me past that to perform.

              There are the four faces on my Mount Rushmore of Teachers, Mrs. Sywalka, Mr. Field, Mrs. Harris, and Mrs. Edwards.  They were all very different, but all a part of my shaping.  As a teacher today, I want to be on someone’s Mount Rushmore.  I want to influence my students as these four influenced me.  Hurrah for Mount Rushmore!

                                                                                      ~~Faith Himes Lamb