By Ken Rossignol
In a land of Facebook and other “social networks” populated by wonderful photos of cute cats, cute kids, spilled food, spoiled food, bombed cities, plastered and pompous celebrities, I thought it would be great for folks to post about their favorite teachers…I can think of several.
In tenth grade English we were greeted by a teacher, Mrs. Weaver, of Richard Montgomery in Rockville, Md., she told us on the first day of class, that day and every day thereafter, for the first 15 minutes, we would be expected to write in our “journal”.
She stated that she didn’t much care what we wrote, only that we wrote something.
Many in the class met her expectation that scurrilous remarks about her, the school, the principal and so forth, would be added each day to the “journal”.
What she succeeded in doing was to indoctrinate all of her students into the art of writing and, now, so many years later, I find that I have written perhaps millions of words in over 25 years combined in The Chesapeake, St. Mary’s Today, 18 books and four Kindle shorts as well as hundreds of postings on Facebook.
In fact, this wonderful teacher who had such a profound effect on her many students, is reportedly still alive.
I had a few other teachers whom I remember fondly, but Mrs. Weaver has to be at the top of the list. Perhaps others who post on Facebook and other venues might recall some of their great teachers and, just by chance, some of them might be alive and able to read what we really thought of them.
But for one tenth grader, Mrs. Weaver guided me into a daily process of putting pen to paper. Whether or not the world appreciates that result of her effort remains to be seen but from me — Thanks, Mrs. Weaver.
Ken Rossignol
