My favorite classes in high school were always English classes. Reading assignments meant I could earnestly say (when my mother reminded me that I hadn’t practiced the piano yet), “I can’t do it right now. I’ve got to do my English assignment. We’re having a quiz on it tomorrow.” Not all reading was the same. It took me a long time to appreciate a good essay. I was always fond of poetry. But what was always my favorite was fiction. I loved stories, so to have stories classified as schoolwork was the best.
This was true, even when the teacher was not particularly effective. For the first two years of high school, my English teacher was apparently trying to stick with teaching until she could retire. A certain lack of energy was present—in her and with us. She could not get discussion going so she merely droned on while I sat in the back and read The Queen’s Grace by Jan Wescott and had been serialized in a women’s magazine, probably McCall’s or Ladies’ Home Journal.
The first day of my junior year, we had a new teacher, Mrs. Lois Stoops. She was from Hawaii. Her walk was distinctive, she had sparkling, black eyes. She sang alto in the faculty quartet, which I occasionally accompanied. She had a great sense of humor and her classes were fun, until . . .
She assigned more work than her predecessor, but that was okay. We gave presentations in class and wrote a lot more. Our assignment one day was to describe in detail an entity from the natural world—animal, mineral, vegetable—that sort of thing. I decided to describe a garden spider, an odd choice for me, as seeing a spider has always turned me into a jelly and I usually call for assistance. However, I wrote a detailed description of a garden spider that was sitting peacefully in my grandmother’s garden, unaware that it was soon to become famous, or infamous.
I was proud of that description. I knew it was a good job. The spider’s colors, the way it crouched in its web waiting for business, and so on. I was happy with it until the end of the week when Mrs. Stoops handed our papers back. At the bottom of the spider’s description, she had written a brief comment. “Winona, you can do better than this,” was all she had written.
I was devastated, shattered. The teacher I adored and most wanted to impress had essentially said that I was certainly not doing my best, if not actually malingering. I was too timid to ask her what was wrong with my little essay or how it could be improved. But that one-sentence response stung.
Today, Mrs. Stoops would probably be considered cruel and heartless and told she should treat her students’ efforts more gently. But I never saw it that way. Although I was initially hurt by her comment, it acted as a spur. It told me that I was good, but I could also be better. I might have to work harder, but I could do it. I should believe in myself. I could achieve. Somewhere, I still have the spider description along with her comment, but I don’t have to see it to remember her words.
