by Jeffrey Russell

Created on: July 03, 2009   Last Updated: July 19, 2009

It is often said that we come into the world as a blank slate, a novel yet to be written, a symphony not yet conducted. If this is true, then it is our teachers who are the writers, the philosophers, the conductors of our lives from the very beginning. My education began in a very small elementary school in Douglasville, Georgia in 1978. It was a public school and we had just moved into town that fall. When I came into that first grade classroom to meet my teacher, Ms. Townsend, I remember feeling that I was somewhere very special.

Ms. Townsend was an older woman who made everyone in her class feel important. I got the feeling she had been teaching for a long time, loved her students, and would do whatever it took to get them to learn. When she divided us up into reading groups, Ms. Townsend did something that I will never forget; she let each child illustrate the stories that we read on our own, allowing us to use our imagination. It was really thrilling feeling like I had a hand in drawing the pictures that went with the latest book or story we were reading. It made me far more interested in stories, in writing, and got me to enjoy school. She always commented on how nice our pictures were and related them to the stories. Her teaching inspired creativity and fostered an interest in school that I have never forgotten. Another teacher that was inspiring and memorable was my third grade teacher, Mrs. Adams. She was in her last year of teaching and getting ready to retire, always saying that we were her last great class. Mrs. Adams encouraged all of us to write stories each day,which thrilled me as I have always loved to write. One day after reading a science fiction story I had turned in, she got the whole class to act it out like a play with intermissions and everything. She was a great, inspiring teacher who used creativity daily and went far beyond a dull classroom routine.

It was in fourth grade that my teacher, Mrs. Watson, introduced me to C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Every afternoon, after we had finished our school work, she would pull out this book and read to us. I remember sitting fixated each day, my mind picturing all the words she was reading from that great story. I think all the students in class looked forward to those afternoons when we could find out what happened in the next chapter.

I remember the rest of us wanting to read more good books after that, even getting our parents to go out and buy trilogies and novels.

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