postscript
SEPT/OCT 2021 / DONNA MOFFLY
I
“Miss Van Houghton was all comfort and forgiveness— something to remember, especially when I had children.”
t’s a new school year, a good time to reflect on what our teachers mean to us. Long ago, I was a “lifer” (K-12) at Hathaway Brown School in Cleveland, having chosen H.B. over Laurel, the rival girls’ school, because it had a bigger dollhouse. Like everybody, I had my favorite teachers and my not-so-so’s, but they taught me sundry skills well beyond academics. For instance: Being understanding. During a firstgrade rest period, I spread my blanket under a double-decker 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. Making decisions. My piano teacher Mrs. Schneider would play three pieces and let me decide what to learn next. Not the pizzicato, I told her at age seven, because “it sounded like a beetle piddling on a leaf.” I loved having a voice in my own destiny. Escaping reality. In upper school Miss Thompson, a frazzled French teacher, rushed up to me before class one morning and asked, “Have you seen ‘Donna Clegg?” “Yes,” I answered, pointing down the hall. “She went that way.” And off she went in hot pursuit of— me! I’d learned how to be an artful dodger. Sharing stories. From dear Miss Cleveland (her real name), a retired English teacher, I learned the magic of storytelling— the reason I love my job today. Every so often she’d come visit to tell us tales from Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad. We were spell-bound. Accepting others. After escaping from Nazi Germany, our chemistry teacher Mrs. Keri had found a job at a girls’ school in Turkey. When she’d ask them things like, “Do you know what H20 means?”, though clueless, they’d all say, “Yes,” because it was considered westportmag.com
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impolite to say, “No.” Weird and wonderful. I became fascinated with other cultures. 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 FBI to school to investigate her. Me and my big mouth. I dropped Latin senior year. Following directions. Miss Bruce, our scary upper school English teacher, was a stickler for rules. When she asked us to write 800 words about something familiar, for some mad reason I wrote about a guy escaping from a concentration camp. “D for the day, Clegg!” still echoes in my ears. Now I’m a stickler about assignments—and have given plenty of them. Negotiating successfully. Senior year, six of us had banded together to give a dance at the Union Club. Miss Coburn, the headmistress, called me into her office to ask if we’d invite the board chairman’s granddaughter, an out-of-town visitor. I’d met the girl, liked her and said sure, but how about a trade-off? When we went out to lunch on Fridays (a senior privilege), we wanted to wear lipstick and loafers instead of tied shoes. Shocked, Miss Coburn called my mother. “That’s not my problem,” Mother told her. “You deal with Donna.” We got lipstick and loafers, and the young lady had a lovely time. For sure I learned more than academics from my teachers, but I taught them something, too—how to change a tire. After I got my driver’s license, Dad insisted I learn some mechanics at the company garage, so I was prepared when I got a flat by the main entrance—and drew quite the audience. Anyway, here’s to our wonderful teachers and, thanks to them, all the “extras” that we can take with us for our lifetimes.
VENTURE PHOTOGRAPHY, GREENWICH, CT
OF TEACHERS AND LESSONS LEARNED
