founder’s page
SEPTEMBER 2021 / DONNA MOFFLY
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I reported this to my father … and he sent the FBI to school to investigate her.
t’s a new school year, a good time to reflect on what our teachers mean to us. Long long ago, I was a “lifer” (K-12) at Hathaway Brown School in Cleveland— starting in kindergarten when I chose H.B. over Laurel, the rival girls’ school, because it had a bigger dollhouse. Like everybody else, I had my favorite teachers and my not-so's, but they taught me sundry skills well beyond academics. Some examples: BEING UNDERSTANDING—During one rest period in first grade, for a change of pace I carefully spread my blanket under a doubledecker trolley of Mason jars full of paint for art class. Except I woke up, sat up, knocked the thing over and made a giant multicolored mess. I was grief-stricken, but Miss Van Houghton was all comfort and forgiveness— something to remember, especially when I had children. Accidents do happen. MAKING DECISIONS—When it came time to choose what to learn next, my piano teacher Mrs. Schneider would play three pieces and let me decide. No, no, definitely not that pizzicato, I told her at age seven, because “it sounded like a beetle peeing on a leaf.” I was more the “Malaguena” type. I loved having a voice in my own destiny. ESCAPING REALITY—In upper school Miss Thompson, a frazzled French teacher, greenwichmag.com
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was always rushing around looking for somebody. She snagged me before class one morning and breathlessly asked, “Have you seen Donna Clegg?” “Yes,” I answered, pointing down the hall. “She went that way.” And off the poor soul went in hot pursuit of— me! I’d learned how to be an artful dodger. SHARING STORIES—Then there was Miss Cleveland (yup, her real name), a wonderful old English teacher from whom I learned the magic of storytelling—probably the reason I still love my job today. Every so often she’d come out of retirement to tell us tales from Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad. We were spellbound. ACCEPTING OTHERS—From our chemistry teacher Mrs. Kerti, I became intrigued with other cultures. After escaping from Germany during World War II, she’d found a job teaching at a girls’ school in Turkey—a real challenge. To get a grip on what they already knew, she’d ask them things like, “Do you know what H2O means?” Though clueless, they’d all say yes, because it was considered impolite to say no. Weird, fascinating and wonderful. KEEPING A LID ON—Probably trying to get our attention, our Latin teacher Miss Blake said that “there ought to be a war in this country” so we’d appreciate what the Romans had to go through. Hmm. I reported this to my father, an exec with TRW, a company that supplied the defense industry, and he sent the
VENTURE PHOTOGRAPHY, GREENWICH, CT
OF TEACHERS AND LESSONS LEARNED
