Accidental inspiration!

Miss G was my school teacher when I was about nine.

She inspired me and  gave me a confidence that helped me to survive the rest of my years at school. However, she has no idea that she did,  and i don’t think she would ever guess how it happened.

One day, she called me and three other kids up to her desk for a serious chat. She said “Okay, none of you have passed a spelling test all year! We need to fix this! You’re all going to have a spelling test in two weeks time, that’s plenty of time to get ready for the test, and I expect ALL of you to pass!”

I was really scared. I already practiced spelling words every afternoon after school with my Mum. We practiced ten different words every afternoon, which was what Miss G expected every kid in the class to do. I could not see how I could do any more than that.

I was quiet at school and loud at home. It did not occur to me to tell Miss G that I was scared.

However, at home after school the conversation with my Mum went a bit like this:

“Mum! Mum! I have a spelling test in two weeks and I HAVE to pass and I’m so scared that I want to move to Mars!”

“Oh!” said Mum “Have you got a list of the words you need learn for the test?”

“I coud start off by building a spaceship out of boxes in the garden, then I’ll just need to figure out how to build it out of metal instead and and invent a way to make oxygen! Then I can go to Mars! Oh yeah, here’s the list.”

Then my Mum suggested a plan that made more sense. Every afternoon we would sit down together and practice spelling EVERY word on the list.

“Then,” said Mum “you’ll be all ready for that test.”

We practiced every word on the list every afternoon. Some words were easy to spell, some took me a few attempts to get right and with some, Mum would smile very patiently and say: “ooooh, well that’s all the right letters, but not quite in the right order.”

The day of the test came, and Miss G sat down with me and read me the words on my list, and I wrote down how I thought they were spelt, and I was quite sure I had got all of them right. She did the same thing with the other three kids.

The next day Miss G called the four of us up to her desk for another serious chat.

“None of you passed!” she said in a very grumpy voice.

None of us said anything. I was shocked and devestated. How could I have not passed? I’d done so much practice!

She fixed her eyes on each of us in turn. She had a frightening glare, a bit like an owl that had eaten a very hot pepper and was trying not to show it.

“Well” she grumped “Did ANY of you do ANY practice?”

“I looked at my list once.” muttered the first kid.

“Yeah, so did I.” said the second kid.

“I looked at mine twice.” said the third kid.

“I practiced my list every day.” I said, and when I said it, I wasn’t scared. It was probably the longest sentence I said to Miss G ever.

“Well Sarah,” she said to me, in a kinder tone of voice “you did improve a little.”

I count those words from Miss G as some of most comforting that have ever been said me. The fact that she practically had steam of fury blowing out of her ears seconds earlier makes those words even more prescious. 

I remembered them for the rest of my days in school.

Every time one of my teachers gave me a task to do that I could not achieve, no matter how much effort I made, I just remembered Miss G and her kind words. They were all the comfort I needed. Her words made me so happy that i never again considered bulding a spaceship and running away to Mars!

 

 

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