TEACHER GREATNESS: Miss Bergland and the Oranges
I heard from a teacher today, a friend who has mastered the so-called distance-learning technology now needed to carry her students through this coronavirus crisis of 2020. Since I still haven’t mastered the basics of ZOOM, which is becoming our nation’s go-to form of communication, I was surprised at her upbeat attitude about it all. In fact, it’s the parents she feels sorry for – they’re trying to instruct their own kids, which is difficult to do, and many simply don’t know how to be a good teacher. I thought about my friend. I thought about good teachers. And I thought about where my life would be without good teachers because I got some not-so-good ones along the way. But the one great teacher I had early in life helped me appreciate all the good ones to follow, and that teacher is why I am where I am today.
Her name was Miss Bergland. She was tall, and had a strong voice and dark hair, and had won some educator awards. That is what they said. She came to our school for two years, and playground gossip said she was there to set an example for other teachers. Whether that was true or not I don’t know. She set an example for me. Forever.
By the time I met Miss Bergland, I was in academic trouble – as a first grader. Dim-witted would have been what they called it then. I’d learned early in my life to tune out troublesome thoughts through elaborate daydreaming, and I was employing this tactic in school. I was about to flunk the first grade, which would have meant I’d be “held back.” Someone, perhaps one of my parents, pointed out that this likely wouldn’t stop the daydreams, and in fact might make them worse since I’d already sat through the starter book “Tip and Mitten” by drifting off into space. My first-grade teacher was dubious about my mental abilities, so one day I went to the principal’s office, a place of dread, and met with the man we all feared, a man who roamed the halls in a white shirt and skinny black tie and said things like: “I saw that!”
The principal put before me a set of pegs and blocks to be placed into corresponding openings, which were cut into a wooden box. Then he got up to close his office door, and, when he returned the blocks and pegs were in proper placement. I remember this because the man who ran the entire school, the man we all revered like a deity, then asked me one of the most obvious questions ever uttered to me in my life: “Did you do this?” There were only two people in the room, and he was one of them and so was I, and he’d been closing the door.
I don’t know if this was what landed me in the second grade, and, more importantly, in Miss Bergland’s class, but that year proved to be my all-time favorite school year ever. Miss Bergland conducted her own test on me, in which I had to immediately identify what was wrong with a picture on a flash card. These were easy to do. There was a bicycle drawn with missing spokes in a wheel; There was a table without a leg. Every time I nailed it, Miss Bergland would say in a booming voice: CORRECT!
Sometimes, even Miss Bergland found me confusing. When we were asked to draw a scene of snow on a day when the cold and ice prevented us from going outside for recess, I grabbed a green crayon, then a brown one. Miss Bergland, who was roving from desk to desk, saw me working away. “Are you trying to draw something else she asked?” sounding mildly alarmed. “No,” I said. “I am drawing the green grass, then I will color it over with brown for dying, then white for winter.” My snow scene looked psychedelic by the time I finished, but Miss Bergland quite literally got the picture.
She gave me books beyond my grade level and noticed that I couldn’t verbalize them very well when asked to read aloud. I had a stammer back then, and it must have been irritating to hear me stumble. So, Ms. Bergland let me read by myself, then asked questions about the content. Where did Jack go? How much money did he make on the lemonade stand? What was his little sister’s name? It was actually hard to shut me up, once I got talking about stories.
The way students in Miss Bergland’s class were rewarded was unconventional. She had all kinds of objects from her international travel, stashed at the back of the classroom. I was able to use chopsticks to eat my lunch while sitting in a kimono. There were berets from France and a huge clunky camera on a tripod, which a pair of children could use – one pretending to be a fashion photographer, the other a model, and any twosome there was encouraged to talk with hokey French accents because Paris was the seat of high couture at the time. Today, a teacher who allowed kids this politically incorrect liberty might risk a heavy reprimand, but to me it was the best make-believe outside of a carnival funhouse.
One day, an expert came in to test me. I don’t know why. But I think it was because Miss Bergland made my first-grade teacher mad by rescuing me. How could I end in the top reading group when I couldn’t even say the words written on the page appropriately?
The lady expert had a no-nonsense manner and a rapid-fire way of talking. Miss Bergland insisted on being present. The lady put some oranges on Miss Bergland’s desk. She asked me to count them. I did. Then she took some of the oranges away – I think there were 13 because I remember it was that unlucky number. She tucked four oranges into a drawer in Miss Bergland’s desk. “Now how many oranges?” she asked. “Thirteen,” I replied. A frown crossed her face. She picked up each of the oranges on the desk. “Let’s count together,” she said. We arrived at nine. She looked pleased. “So, how many oranges now?” I looked up at Miss Bergland. “There are 13,” I said. The lady seemed exasperated; she reminded me that she was conducting the test, not my teacher. She took away two more oranges and put them in another drawer. “Now how many?” she asked. “Thirteen,” I said. She then said to Miss Bergland: “I believe we need to have a talk after we conclude.” Miss Bergland was having none of it.
Miss Bergland asked: “How many oranges are on the desktop?” I told her seven. “Why do you keep saying 13?” she continued. “Tell us why.” I said there were 13 oranges, two in one desk drawer and four in another. There were 13 oranges.
I don’t know for certain, but I believe this is how I finally got school-provided speech therapy. Although I didn’t give the answer the lady expert was looking for, there were 13 oranges that day, after all. And maybe it seemed like I needed help with my way of thinking and my way of forming words, but those oranges – thanks to Miss Bergland – showed I had the means to process information, which apparently had been in some serious doubt.
I think of Miss Bergland whenever I see oranges. She left our school the year after I had her for a teacher. She was on loan, I was told, like a library book. But she wasn’t like a library book at all. She was exactly like the hand prints she had us make in plaster, as presents for our parents. “We are not going to draw around our fingers on construction paper,” she said. “We are going to pour this like cement, so whatever impression is made it will last a lifetime.” And so it has.
--Anne Scheck
I heard from a teacher today, a friend who has mastered the so-called distance-learning technology now needed to carry her students through this coronavirus crisis of 2020. Since I still haven’t mastered the basics of ZOOM, which is becoming our nation’s go-to form of communication, I was surprised at her upbeat attitude about it all. In fact, it’s the parents she feels sorry for – they’re trying to instruct their own kids, which is difficult to do, and many simply don’t know how to be a good teacher. I thought about my friend. I thought about good teachers. And I thought about where my life would be without good teachers because I got some not-so-good ones along the way. But the one great teacher I had early in life helped me appreciate all the good ones to follow, and that teacher is why I am where I am today.
Her name was Miss Bergland. She was tall, and had a strong voice and dark hair, and had won some educator awards. That is what they said. She came to our school for two years, and playground gossip said she was there to set an example for other teachers. Whether that was true or not I don’t know. She set an example for me. Forever.
By the time I met Miss Bergland, I was in academic trouble – as a first grader. Dim-witted would have been what they called it then. I’d learned early in my life to tune out troublesome thoughts through elaborate daydreaming, and I was employing this tactic in school. I was about to flunk the first grade, which would have meant I’d be “held back.” Someone, perhaps one of my parents, pointed out that this likely wouldn’t stop the daydreams, and in fact might make them worse since I’d already sat through the starter book “Tip and Mitten” by drifting off into space. My first-grade teacher was dubious about my mental abilities, so one day I went to the principal’s office, a place of dread, and met with the man we all feared, a man who roamed the halls in a white shirt and skinny black tie and said things like: “I saw that!”
The principal put before me a set of pegs and blocks to be placed into corresponding openings, which were cut into a wooden box. Then he got up to close his office door, and, when he returned the blocks and pegs were in proper placement. I remember this because the man who ran the entire school, the man we all revered like a deity, then asked me one of the most obvious questions ever uttered to me in my life: “Did you do this?” There were only two people in the room, and he was one of them and so was I, and he’d been closing the door.
I don’t know if this was what landed me in the second grade, and, more importantly, in Miss Bergland’s class, but that year proved to be my all-time favorite school year ever. Miss Bergland conducted her own test on me, in which I had to immediately identify what was wrong with a picture on a flash card. These were easy to do. There was a bicycle drawn with missing spokes in a wheel; There was a table without a leg. Every time I nailed it, Miss Bergland would say in a booming voice: CORRECT!
Sometimes, even Miss Bergland found me confusing. When we were asked to draw a scene of snow on a day when the cold and ice prevented us from going outside for recess, I grabbed a green crayon, then a brown one. Miss Bergland, who was roving from desk to desk, saw me working away. “Are you trying to draw something else she asked?” sounding mildly alarmed. “No,” I said. “I am drawing the green grass, then I will color it over with brown for dying, then white for winter.” My snow scene looked psychedelic by the time I finished, but Miss Bergland quite literally got the picture.
She gave me books beyond my grade level and noticed that I couldn’t verbalize them very well when asked to read aloud. I had a stammer back then, and it must have been irritating to hear me stumble. So, Ms. Bergland let me read by myself, then asked questions about the content. Where did Jack go? How much money did he make on the lemonade stand? What was his little sister’s name? It was actually hard to shut me up, once I got talking about stories.
The way students in Miss Bergland’s class were rewarded was unconventional. She had all kinds of objects from her international travel, stashed at the back of the classroom. I was able to use chopsticks to eat my lunch while sitting in a kimono. There were berets from France and a huge clunky camera on a tripod, which a pair of children could use – one pretending to be a fashion photographer, the other a model, and any twosome there was encouraged to talk with hokey French accents because Paris was the seat of high couture at the time. Today, a teacher who allowed kids this politically incorrect liberty might risk a heavy reprimand, but to me it was the best make-believe outside of a carnival funhouse.
One day, an expert came in to test me. I don’t know why. But I think it was because Miss Bergland made my first-grade teacher mad by rescuing me. How could I end in the top reading group when I couldn’t even say the words written on the page appropriately?
The lady expert had a no-nonsense manner and a rapid-fire way of talking. Miss Bergland insisted on being present. The lady put some oranges on Miss Bergland’s desk. She asked me to count them. I did. Then she took some of the oranges away – I think there were 13 because I remember it was that unlucky number. She tucked four oranges into a drawer in Miss Bergland’s desk. “Now how many oranges?” she asked. “Thirteen,” I replied. A frown crossed her face. She picked up each of the oranges on the desk. “Let’s count together,” she said. We arrived at nine. She looked pleased. “So, how many oranges now?” I looked up at Miss Bergland. “There are 13,” I said. The lady seemed exasperated; she reminded me that she was conducting the test, not my teacher. She took away two more oranges and put them in another drawer. “Now how many?” she asked. “Thirteen,” I said. She then said to Miss Bergland: “I believe we need to have a talk after we conclude.” Miss Bergland was having none of it.
Miss Bergland asked: “How many oranges are on the desktop?” I told her seven. “Why do you keep saying 13?” she continued. “Tell us why.” I said there were 13 oranges, two in one desk drawer and four in another. There were 13 oranges.
I don’t know for certain, but I believe this is how I finally got school-provided speech therapy. Although I didn’t give the answer the lady expert was looking for, there were 13 oranges that day, after all. And maybe it seemed like I needed help with my way of thinking and my way of forming words, but those oranges – thanks to Miss Bergland – showed I had the means to process information, which apparently had been in some serious doubt.
I think of Miss Bergland whenever I see oranges. She left our school the year after I had her for a teacher. She was on loan, I was told, like a library book. But she wasn’t like a library book at all. She was exactly like the hand prints she had us make in plaster, as presents for our parents. “We are not going to draw around our fingers on construction paper,” she said. “We are going to pour this like cement, so whatever impression is made it will last a lifetime.” And so it has.
--Anne Scheck