Thank you Mrs Tucker

You can count on whatever the subject I have for my blog, it will usually have a horse picture or two or more. This is SC Lady Ace with "Toro" aboard. 

I had some really good teachers in high school. As a matter of fact all through school. Some were better than others but I ended up with a good education. When I went to school, the teachers were not so bound up with federal and state regulations that they actually had time to teach. Some taught every minute of every day.

I remember especially a day I learned to pronounce a common word correctly. That lesson has stuck with me all my life. I was in the Freshmen class in High School. We were the under classmen and we had the largest class in high school. So they put the entire Freshman Class in the gymnasium for study hall. We had to sit on the bleachers so it was very inconvenient to do home work.

One day I decided I could do better if I went to the Library to study. Or perhaps being a reader, I just wanted to check out a new book. But never the less, I raised my hand. The conversation that followed went something like this, "Yes MISS Rogers, what is it?"

I responded, "May I go to the liberry?"

"Where do you want to go Miss Rogers?" I thought surely Mr King had not heard me since he was rather old. After all he must have been at least 25 years old.

So I spoke a little louder, "May I go to the liberry?" See I already knew the difference between "may and can". That was probably something else he taught me.

"Miss Rogers, I do not know where you want to go." I thought he must be pretty dense if he didn't know what a liberry was. I was also turning red because I couldn't make him understand where I wanted to go. By now my class mates were all listening to the conversation. I heard some snickers from high up in the bleachers

Finally I said, "Mr King, I want to go to the liberry to check out a book."

Now I thought we were surely going to get somewhere and he would excuse me to go to the liberry.

Mr King said, "Oh you want to go to the Library". He emphasized the first r until it rolled around on his tongue before it dropped off and lingered in the air for a couple of seconds before the sound evaporated from the large gym.

Now I was really blushing. But he asked me again where I wanted to go. That time I knew how to answer him. And I finally escaped the giggles of my class mates and out of the gym to the safety of the LIBRARY.

Yes, I was embarrassed. But I learned something that day that has followed me all through life. I learned the importance of good pronunciation. To this day if I hear anybody say "liberry" I cringe and almost look around to see if Mr King was standing there ready to pounce.

Mrs Tucker was our high school English teacher. I loved English and found I was really pretty good in that class. I stayed up with all the smart girls in the class with my good grades. My tests scores showed I worked hard and really had a knack for the spoken language. Mrs Tucker was not a favorite among my class mates. Some really hated learning proper English.

To this day, I catch misstatements in English usage that probably makes Mrs Tucker turn over in her grave. I catch misuse even among professional broadcasters. I heard someone giving a thank you talk a couple of days ago. This lady was thanking everyone for their prayers and support of her family when she was sick. It was all good until she said "Thank you for the ways you helped my family and I though this hard time in our lives".

My mind went back to Mrs Tucker's little test. If you left out my family would it be I or me. Of course it would be me.

Now I think I have carried this all too far. But in my defense, I do not correct people for their misuse. I do try to avoid those kinds of mistakes because I had a teacher that cared.

Thanks to Mrs Tucker and probably Mr King as well, I cringe when I hear someone say something like, "I seen him do it". They wanted us to have a good education and cared enough to see that we learned.

I have had many other teachers in my life. In fact, education lasts throughout one's lifetime.The more I learn the more certain I am that I really know very little.

May God bless and keep you in His loving care. And may your education always begin and end with the God of our Universe.  "For the beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord"

Regards

Mary