If we are lucky, we have a teacher or two during our K-12 education that has a lasting impact on our lives. These are the rare ones that really care and can make a difference in our grown-up selves (would I be in science without Mr. K??). I had two such teachers during high school, and today, I learned that one of them passed away. Mrs. Hultgren was commander-in-chief of s-o-p-h-o-m-o-r-e English. She ran class like a Marine boot camp. She made you sweat and you either made the grade or were ridiculed in front of the entire class. You didn’t go to the 11th grade unless you passed.
I still have vivid memories of the first day of class. The main lesson was that this was going to be one heck of a tough time. She drilled the correct spelling of s-o-p-h-o-m-o-r-e into us. In the process, she honed in on cute, little, big-eyed, always perfect Teresa (who was a bit smug in my book) and reduced her to tears. OK – I’ll admit I enjoyed that, but was still left shaking thinking I could be next. The lesson plans are still clear in my mind. First we read about Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Norgay Tenzing. Then we spent 6 weeks with Lord of the Flies. It was simply amazing to be in Mrs. Hultgren’s class and have red-hair with freckles, same as the charactor of Jack. I managed to stand up to the daily taunting, and who knows how much that helped me in my quest to be a woman physicist. Springtime was Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, in olde English. Once again, I was in the forefront as my birthday is the Ides of March.
I had Mrs. Hultgren again, for English Literature when I was a senior. She still made us work hard, but was more mellow, probably because we took the class as an elective. It was one of my favorite classes ever. I was talking with her one day after class and discovered that she was recently divorced after 18 years of marriage. I asked why, and her response was so poignantly honest and open, that I remember it verbatim to this day. She said: “sometimes you can love someone dearly, but can’t live with them.”
Anyway, my highschool girlfriends and I generated some internet traffic today, which was nice. We were horrified to realize that we are the same age now (29) as Mrs. Hultgren was when she taught us. One of my friend’s oldest son is a s-o-p-h-o-m-o-r-e and is reading Lord of the Flies. My, how times change and things still stay the same!
This one is for you, Mrs. Hultgren:
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
April 12th, 2006 at 1:53 am
A touching tribute. And a good way to remember that we often have opportunities to pass along a little of what our favorite teachers gave us. I was chatting with an old high school chum a couple of years ago and we began to reminisce about our old calculus teacher. My buddy laughingly recalled some of the quirky techniques our teacher had used to catch our attention and help us to remember things. It startled me because I was using those very same techniques in my own classes without having recalled where I had picked them up. He taught me more than just calculus.
P.S.: Did Mrs. Hultgren ever point out that you should say “she homed in on” rather than “she honed in on”?
April 12th, 2006 at 4:25 am
Doing a little algebra on “we are the same age now (29) as Mrs. Hultgren was when she taught us” together with the fact that Mrs. Hultgren was born in 1931 tells me that you already celebrated your 29th birthday for the tenth time. But a very touching story!
April 12th, 2006 at 8:59 am
It’s great that you and your friends are in email contact to reminisce about Mrs. Hultgren. I know I was very fortunate to have Mrs. Eberhart and other teachers. Without them, I might have ended up as a politician or a string theorist.
April 12th, 2006 at 9:49 am
Nice tribute.
As a teacher for 33 years myself, I can only hope that some of my students remember me the way you remember Mrs. Hultgren.
“I’m sitting by my daughter’s bedside in the pediatric ward of the hospital. She has just come down from the recovery room and I am waiting for her to wake up. In the bed across the way, a young boy, around 14 years old is asleep. His father sits at his side, his eyes half closed in weariness. It seems like he has been there a long time.
After a while he begins to stir and gets up and walks over to the window. We exchange a brief glance and I sense the recognition in his eyes. Then the surprise. “Mr. Wagner!” he says. “Do you remember me?” Unfortunately, I don’t. “I was in your class in 9th grade”. I struggled with the face but I could not produce the name. “Billy Daniels” he went on, “I was in your 4th period science class at Island Trees Junior High”. Good God almighty, I thought, that was almost 25 years ago. He must be 40 by now, just ten years younger than me.
We talked for a while about my daughter’s accident and he told me about his son’s knee, which he damaged playing soccer. Then he asked me if I was still teaching. He seemed happy to hear that I still was. I asked him what he was doing. “I’m a teacher too”, he said, obviously proud to be able to tell me this. “Do you remember that story that you told us about the zoroastrian temples along the Jersey Turnpike?” He began to laugh like a kid. “Well, I still tell that story to my students! And it’s just as funny now as it was when I first heard it”.
I still tell that story to my students too.
“And do you remember telling me that you hoped that someday I would become a teacher and you hoped I would have a student just like me?” Sure I remembered. I say that all the time when students aggravate me. “Well, I did, and you were right. I’ve got plenty that are just like I was. And I never forget that. And that makes all the difference”.
They say that life is like a river that flows deep and wide. But I think that it’s more like a chain, and each one of us is a link to the past and to the future. I began to realize that every kid that ever sat in my room carries a little piece of me with them when they leave. And every one of them is forever a part of me… and I am a part of them.”
April 12th, 2006 at 10:06 am
I like to think well about the good teachers who don’t make these huge impressions but do, in fact, make up a significant fraction of the profession. Those men and women who facilitate the processes by which we learn in a more invisible way.
Of course, that’s not to denigrate the charismatic teachers, but most teacher (and in general, most people) lack that charisma but, nevertheless, still quietly achieve the main part of the job (which is to say, helping people learn).
April 12th, 2006 at 10:37 am
And you think it’s weird that you’re 29 like your teacher was? My mother’s still 29 and that means that I’m older than she is.
April 12th, 2006 at 10:44 am
Teachers never know how they are connecting. I had a student in seventh grade English (1963) who always struggled. He worked hard but made low grades. Some years later he came to see me at school, wearing an Army uniform and looking great. He said I was his favorite teacher and that he chose a career in the service because I always came to class with my shoes shined!
April 12th, 2006 at 11:44 am
And I don’t think that teachers who ‘actually care’ are all that rare, not in my experience. Of course, showing the kids that you care is something of a double-edged sword. Most people, though, don’t go into teaching for the high pay and the glamour, and many of those do care.
April 12th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
And here’s to you, Mrs. Robertson, for convincing an algebra-phobic seventh-grader that she was actually good at math.
April 12th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
that was really nice. I need to go cehck up on my middle school teachers… though they probly dont rember me.
touching tribute.
April 12th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
Mrs. Hultgren, or the Hulk, was an amazing teacher. The passage JoAnne put up next to her picture was one we were required to memorize in her class. I don’t think a single student who had her will ever forget her. She was tough but you learned.
She also liked to do things such as lecture and scratch her arm waiting to see how long it would take before each and every student in class started scratching along with her.
JoAnne, was it her class where we had to write an essay on how to tie shoe laces and then she’d read each aloud to see how accurate we were?
April 12th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Teachers never know how they are connecting. and herein lies one of the errors in education reform efforts.
Knowing what happens to students later in life, is vital to good teaching. Yet we wish to spend literally billions of dollars reducing that to one set of test scores for one academic year and calling that achievement accountability. I learned that lesson way back in the early 80s when i was traipsing about in the backcountry of the Sierra’s. A small group of hikers came by in the opposite direction. As the third or fourth backpack passes by, i hear this voice repeat a certain mythic statement. I laugh out loud, knowing that it was something i often said to my students in class. It turns out that the person who said it was in my freshman, native american, survey course at CSUH. He was in Law school and had never forgotten the class. It because apparent to me, especially when i moved on to teaching teachers, that keeping in touch with students as they matriculate through our education systems, affords the opportunities to review and refine teaching and connecting. It makes a difference.
I would love to hear that JoAnne made the effort to at least let Mrs. H know that she made a difference before she passed on. As Spatulated recommends, please go and connect with at least one of the teachers who you remember connected with you and helped you in some way be whom you are today. And Spatulated, yes they will remember you.
April 12th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
Since one of my most memorable teachers recently passed away, I share in your feelings of loss. While your teacher taught English literature, mine taught sociology. Oddly enough, my teacher was probably one of the few teachers in the southern-bible-belt who was not reprimanded for voicing her occasional left-leaning views. This reason alone makes her also one of my most intriguing teachers.
April 12th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
It’s great to see that we have so many teachers reading CV! And yes, Adam, I do think that all teachers are heros. Well, maybe almost all….I’m in physics despite Mrs. Cassidy’s high school physics class.
Spyder, I did indeed have the opportunity a couple years ago to thank my high school teachers and let them know what they produced (for better or worse!). I was back at the school for an award ceremony, talked to the teachers that were still there, and the school contacted on my behalf the ones that had retired. It was great fun to see them!
April 12th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
[ "American educators take this philosophy to heart. they view their jobs as
preparing the citizens of the world's most influential society." I am absolutely FURIOUS at the Bush administration for bastardizing the education system with the "passing exams" policy. There was a CBS News interview with 2 Texas HS teachers a few yrs ago, who were frustrated at having to spend $$ on exam-materials nonsense, rather than BOOKS. Any teacher will tell you "grades don't mean anything". How does a NUMBER equate to LEARNING? Answer: nothing. Some of the best researchers had mediocre or poor grades. Einstein was one. I read somehwere that M. Franklin/Harvard was a HS dropout. (I find that hard to believe). People tell me she's enthusiastic (loves her work), & her feistiness ("fighter", "Victory belongs to the Most Persevering"/Napoleon) was apparent on her "Discovering Women" episode. ]
[ the CV members made a commitment to Teaching & Research, when they signed on as faculty members. CVJ has some nice posts about his interaction with undergrads (the ones who invited him to the LA Philharmonic) & postdocs. CVJ also has an outreach program in S. Africa, for HS students (?) ]
I pulled this from somehwere:
…And let’s not overlook the kids themselves, who are also willing to help
in the process. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I pay the schoolmaster, but it is the school boys who educate my son.”…
[ This is essentially a synopsis of any Education program: teaching us HOW to think. A classmate at my 20th reunion told me "It taught us to ask the RIGHT QUESTIONS". "IT" is referring to our famous high school (which produced 3 Nobel Laureates: Physics '76, Literature, Economics '82, & George Will of ABCNews), which was on the forefront of developing New HS curriculums in Math ("The New Math"), Science, English, History). Our teachers were all PhDs (or grad students in Education Dept, developing their teaching skills), specialists in Education. Some of you probably used these materials (or further derivatives), especially the New Math. Do a Google search on "Max Beberman", on of the co-founders of the New Math movement (the other one was G. Polya/Stanford). This is Frank Lloyd Wright's favorite quote, I got it from the PBS documentary on FLW..do look it up (I have a videotape), it's quite good. FLW was the greatest American architect, who made a startling comeback in his later years. He was able to compete with the younger guys, & even surpass them. I'm personallly interested in the similarity between modus-operanda in Art & Science..they are both CREATIVE endeavors. I'm trying to develop material that could be used as coursework, for undergrad science majors. CVJ seems to be on the same path, he has had a number of posts, about the Santa Monica art-thing..the one that L. Krauss gave a talk at. The Brian Greene "star" on Hollywood Walk of Fame ]
Shaquille O’Neal (formerly LA Lakers center) & Emmit Smith (Dallas Cowboys running back), both finished up their degrees (LSU & xxx, respectively) after promising their moms they would graduate.
[ Indiana Unv, Notre Dame, Duke Univ (M. Kryzewski, protege of B. Knight @West Point) have EXTREMELY high graduation rates. They DO put an emphasis on education. B. Knight even taught a cross-disciplinary course in the Chemistry Dept about strategy, something like that. ]
Joanne, you shoulda seen what I did at my 20th reunion. Our president distributed a questionaire (”survey”), & I extended it by contacting old-teachers & classmates (who couldn’t attend) & doing interviews..complete w/transcripts. It was incredibly informative, & probably qualifies as a Master’s Thesis. I even stayed overnight at my Math teacher’s house! (Max Beberman’s protege, who continued the New Math curriculum). Many of the teachers were enthused to hear back from their old students (of course they would!)
Here’s what I sent to my HS class (Class of ‘75), after our 20th HS reunion:
ABCNews interview with Judge Joe Brown
[ Joe Brown is an African-American judge (UCLA grad, son of teachers), who has his TV show "Judge Joe Brown", a spinoff off of "Judge Judy" & "People's Court" ]
“In retrospect, she [Ms. Leppert, the Grand Dame of History Dept, she was a Columbia PhD & very demanding. TONS of homework ] was good for us”
– Monica xxxxx ‘95 reunion survey (by S. xxxxx)
[ basically, "tough love" was the best prepartion for a tough world ]
During the 20th reunion in ‘95, I was able to have a number of phone
conversations with Ella Leppert. She told me:
“I always thought the students didn’t go ALL THE WAY, only halfway”
[ well, what does a Columbia PhD expect from her students? Nothing but the best effort ]
[ bizarre note: I was the ONLY one that was able to talk to her, she had ex-communicated the HS alumni people! ]
I passed around a Thank You card at Katsina’s (Sunday portion of reunion), so people could sign it. I later put in Ms. Leppert’s mailbox (she wasn’t taking guests, she had Alzheimers & became a hermit). So, I made sure she got some positive feedback:
One of my classmates was influenced by her, & became a famous historian (UNLV History dept head), who wrote a book on “Los Alamos/Manhattan Project” from an Environmental History standpoint. He’s had appearances on History Channel, CBS, etc. Another gal was also influenced, & ended up with a History PhD from Princeton (who married a Princeton Math PhD), & blew off Academia (like me). Someone else was also influenced by her, & he was involved with some United Nations type of work.
What I found, was that certain teachers (Math, History, English, Science) connected with *certain* students, & totally alienated others. It’s almost like students were already PRE-DETERMINED what their career was going to be. Technical types were going to gravitate towards Math & Science courses, artistic types towards Literature, etc. The world-events (for us, the Vietnam war, social upheaval of the 60’s, etc) influenced many to become musicians. A way of doing social-commentary. Many of their fathers were physics & math profs (one of them was David Pines, M. Gell-Man’s best friend @UIUC). Note that Robert Leighton’s sons became musicians/artists (Alan & I know each other)
There are some interesting questions related to Nature & Nurture, in career development..even at HS level. A topic worthy of study in Dept of Education & Sociology. I dabbled in it for my informal project at our 20th reunion, THAT hobby thing has led to some serious issues for my HS (& Caltech, Harvard). All 3 of these institutions have negative effects of bright students crammed together in a hyper-competitive environment. LOTS of suicides, the most recent one a daughter of a well known physicist (Harvard PhD). Just found out another daughter of a physicist killed herself. That Caltech genius-girl (Carver Mead’s famous PhD student) profile in Discovering Women (M. Franklin/Harvard was also profiled), jumped in front of a train in Switzerland. The latter is not public knowledge, one of her Caltech grad school colleagues told me this (his dad is a famous Caltech Nobel Laureate, Biology). That Caltech grad student (Physics, string theory, double math/physics major out of Univ of Chicago) who was caught for environmental terrorism (burning SUVs), is sitting in Federal Jail. Long sentence. Basically, these smart kids are “too smart for their own good” & “going over the edge”. I’m about to file a report to my HS/Caltech/Harvard (& other institutions), that they NEED to teach a course on:
“Discretion is the Better Part of Valor”
[ know when to "apply the whip" & "hold the reins" ]
I find myself in dangerous situations (eclipse-chasing around the world, putting myself at risk). Somehow, I know when to “cool it”. I know when I’m close to the edge, & to back off.
I have TONS more quotes & material on Education, particularly HS level. I will open up my archives soon on my own blog, & share some here.
Thanks for the post, it’s interesting to see that there were other “Tough Love” HS teachers making their impact. Every professional can point to a few teachers, who were influential. In fact, these were probably the teachers you HATED the most while in school: they pushed you to your limits, to *challenge* you.
[ cars crashing, as the engineers/drivers push their cars to the edge. They call them "Knife Edge" cars, they are so unstable. Many of these Academic "geniuses" are famous for being temperamental/unstable. Whew, have I seen my share! One of the reasons I exited Academia..I rather be around pleasant people, as opposed to hyper-competitive obnoxious types! "Big personalities", was the term used for the screwup of the HST mirror ]
[ this explains race-car crashes, resulting in injuries & deaths. Also, explains the suicides in Academia ]
“We went right to the edge, looked over to the brink of insanity”
– Ray Manzarek, “The Doors” rock-band
[ referring to Jim Morrison & Doors creative philosophy of pushing-the-limits. "The Doors" was based on Aldous Huxley's book Doors of Perception, & the quote:
--William Blake
The above quote kinda fits nicely to CV. Has String Theory become more speculation/perception, rather than hard Science? ]
The Doors is the most “intellectual” rock group, they were all UCLA grads who met during coursework (Yoga class, film school).
April 13th, 2006 at 12:55 am
I promise, I won’t write a lot. But I had to smile delightedly about something related by a previous poster, about the “Zoroastrian temples along the Jersey Turnpike.” I am a student of Zoroastrianism (the ancient monotheistic religion of Persia), have published articles on it, lectured at various places, and have lots of contacts in the Zoroastrian community. There’s a Zoroastrian section on my Website. The reason that the teacher said that there were Z. temples along the Jersey Turnpike was that there are “eternal flames” burning at the top of the gas towers at the oil refineries there, to burn off waste gas. Zoroastrian temples have an eternally burning flame because the Fire is the symbol of Divine light, power, and energy.
I have thought the same thing about refinery fires many times but my Zoroastrian friends say that it is not the same thing as a temple fire, it is merely a “secular” instance of fire.
There are many more things I could say about this but I will reserve them for my own blog ELECTRON BLUE rather than take up any more Cosmic space.
April 13th, 2006 at 9:13 am
Amy wrote:
“JoAnne, was it her class where we had to write an essay on how to tie shoe laces and then she’d read each aloud to see how accurate we were?”
That is a great assignment. Similar to what Phaedrus does in “Zen”.
“He told her angrily, “Narrow it down to the front of one building on the main street of Bozeman. The Opera House. Start with the upper left-hand brick.”
Her eyes, behind the thick-lensed glasses, opened wide. She came in the next class with a puzzled look and handed him a five-thousand-word essay on the front of the Opera House on the main street of Bozeman, Montana. “I sat in the hamburger stand across the street,” she said, “and started writing about the first brick, and the second brick, and then by the third brick it all started to come and I couldn’t stop. They thought I was crazy, and they kept kidding me, but here it all is. I don’t understand it.”
“In one class he had everyone write all hour about the back of his thumb. Everyone gave him funny looks at the beginning of the hour, but everyone did it, and there wasn’t a single complaint about “nothing to say.”
Read the whole chapter here:
tinyurl.com/rt76n
April 13th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Joanne, did you just say you & your friends are 29? Isn’t this a typo? Like, 39? At my HS 20th reunion, we were all 35-36′ish.
Forgot to mention that out of the Big 3 from my HS, 2 have passed away recently in ‘99 (English/Vanderbilt PhD & History/Columbia PhD). They were both women, who had “extremely high standards” & held their students to that profile. They had a famous (& infamous) reputation, but in the end we all agreed “in retrospect, they were good for us”. They were “old school”, much like Joanne’s English teacher:
“Discipline Creates Performance”
– commercial for Lance Armstrong, 7-time Tour de France champion
[ his HS experience is interesting..he was ostracized in Plano/TX, because he didn't "conform" by playing football. To say the least, his HS experience was unpleasant..guess who had the last laugh? He is arguably the greatest American sports figure of all time, a true modern-day American hero..from Texas. To this day, he has rejected any overtures by his HS to come back for a reunion (Unfortunately, he is friends with George Bush & got GWB to ride a Trek mountain bike. Naturally, GWB had a nasty crash on it, as well as wrecking the Segway. Speaks volumes on GWB's abilities. "Wreck" is the operative word for the Bush Administrations foreign policy) ]
April 13th, 2006 at 11:24 am
She was joking about being 29, chimpanzee. 29 again, ever since her first 29th birthday.
April 13th, 2006 at 11:44 am
Not a word yet from Teresa.
April 13th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Indeed, I think 29 is a good age – think I’ll stay there for awhile.
Cynic, that’s a good one! Teresa is a biologist (there’s Mr. K’s influence again) working on tissue studies last I heard – She should be reading CV!