Life Lessons

Everyone has one. You know, that special teacher who made a difference in your life. It is what makes teachers special. Every teacher has to hope that they touched a student and changed their life. I have been lucky, I suppose that there are more than one teacher who reached into a special corner of my psyche and planted a seed. One of my favorite teachers was my Gardie six history teacher at Admiiral Westphal school in Dartmouth Nova Scotia. her name was Mrs. Lawrence.
Mrs Lawrence is the reason I love history to this day. She is the reason that I graduated Dalhousie University in 1981 with a degree in history. Mrs. Lawrence brought history to life. She took it out of stale old textbooks and set it free. She put the "Story" in history. She told us of how people lived in the times we were learning about. She gave me a hunger to learn more about the past that has never left me. I have not seen her since I left Admiral Westphal, but I would love to. A number of years ago my Mother met her in a shopping mall where she was launching a children's book she had written. Even retired she was still reaching out to children. i wonder how many other children she has touched over the years? How many other potential insurance salesmen have become historians or teachers?
as important as history is Mrs/ Lawerence once taught me a bigger lesson still, a life lesson that has stayed with me all these years. I have long since forgotten what a dangling participle is. I have no clue what the chemical symbol for magnesium is. I can live without those things
Dartmouth is about as racially diverse as the east coast gets. We had people of different religions and different colors. One day a student made a slur against an African Canadian student. Mrs. Lawrence snapped to attention. "Sit down everyone!" she said firmly. "Take out your pencils!" we were all stunned. We couldn't do it fast enough. When we were all ready wide eyed and rapt. "Now make a mark, as dark and hard as you can on the middle of the page!" We complied with vigor I made a circular blob about the size of a drink coaster on the paper. "Now" said Mrs Lawrence "erase it! The best you can!" I scrubbed the paper vigorously. The pink rubber eraser was gone is a few seconds, tiny rolls of rubber were strewn across the page, the stub of the eraser was black and so was the paper. All the effort had done nothing, the mark though lighter was still clearly visible. "There" Mrs Lawrenec said with satisfaction. " doesn't come off does it? Neither does the mark on a person's soul when you call them a name in cruelty. We are all different! What name are you afraid of? Call someone something in hatred and you mark them for life. Apologies are erasers but they never take away the stain. Remember that before you call someone a name in anger. Words are powerful and they are hard to erase."
They are indeed. Mrs Lawrence your words have stuck with me all these years. We all have something that makes us a target for someone Else's' barbs; weight, height, race, religion, physical disability etc. We all walk a fine line between acceptance and ridicule. I have a much greater tolerance because of people like Mrs Lawrence. Lesson learned.