|
|
SubTitle: Multi-generational Teachers
Posted by: Bob Sheridan (bobsheridan@earthlink.net) on 11/14/1997@00:06hrs:
In Reply to: Re: Great Teachers on Old Staten Island posted by: bob f on 11/13/1997@13:51hrs:
YaKnow, RF, I had teachers my parents had on Old SI. For example, at PS29, when I came home and told my parents my first grade teacher was Miss DeWitt, I learned my father had her. Miss Burfield, the sixth grade teacher, hated FDR; she taught one of my parents, who sympathized with me. My Curtis chem teacher, Mr. Halloran, taught my mother at PRHS, circa '31-'35. My biology teacher, Mrs. Landes, was a classmate of my mother and on Corregidor (the Philippines, for the newcomers) with MacArthur. Leon Loan, my initial Spanish teacher at Curtis, was in the merchant marine during the war; torpedoed and sunk twice on the Murmansk run (look it up, youngsters), according to "the word." Senorita Eakin, what can I say about her. Watched the soundings being taken for the V-N bridge circa '57, '58, from her Spanish class window when I was supposed to be looking at the blackboard.
A lot of the teachers were well-along in life experience and they didn't welcome fools. Teaching didn't seem to be a job for flighty people; you needed your feet on the ground to teach and control 30 wise guys and girls who might rather be hanging around the perimeter fence, up to not a lot of good. We were well capable of getting into no end of trouble given half-a-chance, that is, a moment's lack of supervision.