And really, it wasn’t that arduous for the older folks since they had only to sit there, listen to Suzy’s lecture, and then answer a few questions to pass her tests. Suzy’s adult playmates found the school game much easier than running about outside in a game of tag, riding a bicycle, playing ball, or hanging out in the old family barn’s hayloft. Although playing school was not physically arduous, sometimes it could be distressing when little Suzy failed her pupils and called them “dumbbells.”

“Ding! Ding! Ding! The bell is ringing. Class will begin now!”

 Suzy formally began, calling her class of “Granny” to order.

“Class has begun. Now … today’s lesson will be … diagramming a sentence. Diagramming a sentence will help us in reading and in writing a correct sentence. Every sentence has a subject and a predicate. The subject is usually a noun … a person, place, or thing. It’s what the sentence is about. Now, Miss Braun, please give me a short simple sentence and tell me the subject.”

The lesson had indeed begun, and for over half an hour, a distressed Granny had to endure all the fine points that Suzy had recently learned in her 6^th grade class at the Columbus Union School. Although Granny did her best, an hour later, when Suzy gave the written test, collected it, graded it, entered it into her record book, and returned it, Granny had, as usual, flunked.

“Miss Braun, you will simply have to do more study in this subject. I want you to go home, review your notes, and think about the lesson. Class dismissed.”

With that, a slightly embarrassed and mentally exhausted Granny, age seventy-five, was dismissed from class, and Suzy, on looking over at the vestibule door, was pleased to see that she had, as usual, a small audience. Her father, uncle, aunt, and mother had all been observing for the last several minutes. Suzy had actually noticed them peering in, but when class was in session, there were no interruptions for silliness. Suzy was really in “teacher-mode.”

“Suzy, dear … you are certainly going to be the intellectual of this family! Look how she loves all her school subjects … and can even teach them … loves teaching. Albert, your daughter is a brilliant young girl.”

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Unfortunately, because Susan’s senior mentor, Miss Styles, was an old-fashioned, excessively strict and controlling teacher, she was loath to turn over her class to a novice like Susan. For several months, after briefly mentioning that the strange woman in the back row was a student teacher, Miss Styles left Susan to sit in the back of the classroom and observe. Only rarely, was Susan given some homework papers to correct or asked to walk around the room and answer any questions the girls might have.

Thus it was, and Susan found her days at the school quite uneventful, even boring except for the continually gnawing angst of knowing that, sooner or later, she would have to stand up before the class and begin teaching. But, when was that time coming? Half the semester had already passed swiftly, and Susan had done very little except sit quietly in the back of the room and observe. Nevertheless, there remained the requirement that all student teachers be allowed to do some teaching. Eventually, Miss Styles would have to relinquish the class to her student teacher.

Week by week, Susan grew more and more dispirited and disappointed. It was just a stroke of bad luck that she had been assigned to an apparently uncooperative teacher who was reluctant to give her student teacher any teaching time. Speaking to the two other student teachers in the department, Susan learned that both had already taught a half-dozen times or more. Even though Susan considered talking to Mr. Williamson about her situation, she decided that it would probably do no good. If word of her dissatisfaction were voiced to Miss Styles, the situation might grow only worse. Ultimately, Miss Styles was in control and would be giving her a final grade. With this clearly in mind, Susan decided to simply accept her frustrating situation and hope to get something out of the class by just watching this old, master teacher at work.

Then, one day quite near the semester end, as she sat rooted in her seat in the last row, eyes lowered, listening, she heard her name.   

“Class,” Miss Styles announced to one of her beginning algebra classes, “you all know our student teacher for this semester, Miss Samson. Well, tomorrow … Miss Samson will be teaching the lesson.”

And when the bell rang a few seconds later, the students dashed from the class, unconcerned that Susan would be teaching the lesson the following day. When the classroom was emptied of the last pupil, Miss Styles spoke out.

“Miss Samson … will you step forward to my desk, please.”

Susan hastily grabbed her belongings and walked forward, feeling almost like an unruly pupil about to be reprimanded. Miss Styles, seated at her desk, looked up over the top of her glasses at Susan and handed her a sheet of paper. It was the lesson plan for the following day. 

“Miss Samson,” she instructed, “all the material outlined on this sheet which I’ve prepared for you … must be covered. You may present the material as you see fit—your best ideas, of course. It’s a simple lesson—beginning equations. You have to cover all the material to enable the girls to do the homework assignment which is outlined there. Read whatever you wish in order to prepare … but you’ve been following along … you see what our students can do … so gear it to the class. Good luck.”

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“My name is Miss Samson,” she began in a loud, somewhat testy tone, “and I’ll be your homeroom teacher. I teach mathematics … and maybe I’ll have some of you in my math classes.”

Immediately, jeers and boos arose as all the girls expressed their dislike for either her or mathematics—Susan could not be sure which. It was certainly disappointing for her to at once be the subject of such a blatantly negative reaction.

“Hey, teacher … didn’t you student teach here last semester. I seen you before,” someone yelled out.

“Please … if you have questions, raise your hand,” she quipped back.

At that, every hand went up, and all the girls looked around and laughed wildly at the prank on their very gullible, naïve teacher.

“Very funny! So we’ll not have any questions just now! We’ll do that after I call the roll and see who’s here.”

Susan opened her notebook and took out her roster of students.

“When I call your name, please just say, ‘here.’ If I mispronounce your name, please correct me. I’m not very good with names.”

As she glanced through her roster of students for homeroom, she saw many long names she had not the slightest idea how to pronounce. And sure enough, as she began through the names, there were jeers, yelled-out comments, loud guffaws, and outright yelps as the students poked fun at her pronunciation. Almost every student, whether the name was correct or not, played the game. Susan knew they were simply tormenting her.

“No, teach … that be all wrong. Jeez! It’s not pronounced dat way!”

“Christ … you slaughtered that. My name is …”

“Boy … do we have a lame teacher … and she says she teaches math!”

“Our teacher is a dumb jerk.”