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Mrs. Taylor was a teacher in our middle school long before I had arrived there and was very concerned about her relationship with the new Head of School.  I was young then and somewhat naïve about the needs of middle school students, teachers, and families. Mrs. Taylor had been described to me as the toughest teacher in the Middle School and I think that several people had already described me as an agent of change.  I am sure that those same people viewed Mrs. Taylor as one of those changes.

I was surprised when I first met Mrs. Taylor.  She was soft spoken, yet firm.  Her knowledge of the children was exemplary.  Her passion for teaching was unsurprisingly strong.  Mrs. Taylor went on to introduce herself as the meanest teacher in the middle school and I winced.

Over the years, she had come to embrace the title that others had bestowed on her.  She had begun to view her stances on homework, classwork, and classroom behavior as antiquated.   Yet when I sat in her class, she was masterful.  There were students and parents who complained that her behavior changed when her primary evaluator was there, but you could see the passion that hid just beneath the surface for her and for her students.  Yes, she was tough, but she was fair, and she was unmerciful if a student wasted her time, her students’ time, and the school’s time by not completing the work that was asked of them.  And she knew each of her children well enough to understand when more could be expected.

I did not view Mrs. Taylor as the meanest teacher in the school and I worked with her on the ways she described herself and her students to others.  Mrs. Taylor had high expectations for every student in her classes, but she was never mean-spirited. When the eighth graders dedicated the next years’ yearbook to Mr. Taylor, I knew that her reputation was shot.  Tough, yes….mean, no more.

Next time: Stories From the Classroom: Lenny

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From our first posting:

“As parents and teachers, we need to reclaim our traditional role as influencers of our children – not by shouting louder than the influencers our children discover online, but by stressing ideas that are more important than fancy shoes and snappy TikTok tunes. We need to emphasize traits that everyone agrees children will honor.  We need to convince our children that the people who are most important to them have a better understanding of what it takes to be successful in life.”

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