Big Wheel Keeps on Turning
Big wheel keeps on turning, churning up snippets so long forgotten they might not be rightfully considered mine anymore. (Reading over that line, I'm feeling a little too much like Miss Daisy...better get some of that there "blueing shampoo."
A name, in author and VCFA faculty advisor, Sharon Darrow's Write at Your Own Risk post, "The Imagination Has Its Orders," prompted the stop and pried the cage open this go round. Bonnie Riedinger, not even the correct name--off by one letter--but close enough. Yep, like horseshoes and hand grenades, memory works that way.
Halloween, Junior Year, my BF Valerie is Alice. Get what that leaves me? We were having too much fun to graduate!
My senior year of high school, I only had to take two required classes, Government and Senior English. I didn't need to take either really, could actually have graduated early, but why? I had a good paying job--school hours only, weekends and holidays off--in the Career Guidance Center, (I would have had to quit if I graduated.) My friends were all still in school. I wasn't ready to be big.
Instead, I padded my schedule with Volleyball P.E. with a plan to slide through my senior year.
A certain Huntington Beach High School English teacher named Mrs. Riedlinger (note the "l") was my is responsible for turning my slider into a home run.
People ask why I became a writer. It took reading that one-letter-wrong name all these years later for me to come up with an answer: Mrs. Riedlinger. I doubt she'd remember me (even a year later.) I wasn't that kind of student. But Mrs. Riedlinger was that kind of teacher.
“Going round and round and round in the circle game. . . ”
Here's what I remember from Mrs. Riedlinger's class: We read the Odyssey AND Travels with Charlie. She taught poetry, by way of the classics--AND Dylan AND Elton AND Mick. Unheard of! (This was 1975-76, back before the age of reason.)
She assigned 10 SAT words a week. "Define them and use them each in a sentence."
That name stopped me. I Googled my teacher and 2 yearbook pages popped up. Judith Riedlinger, teaching at HBHS in 1971-1985.
I raised my hand. "Do we have to write one sentence each?" I asked. "Or can we use more than one word in a sentence."
(The smart girl in the class, Deirdre, who by the end was my friend and still is, thought up the question. She was a sophomore who'd already skipped a grade or two, and unlike me, had every intention of graduating early.)
"Use as many as you like per sentence. Use them all in one sentence if you can. But," Mrs. Riedlinger challenged. "If you want it to count, it had better be a proper sentence."
Each week of that semester Deirdre and I went for it. Doing so took much more time, no doubt, but we managed to cut our sentence production. And at least once we succeeded in correctly using all 10 of that week's words in one sentence. If memory serves, two of those were sagacious and parsimonious.
My story, of a passionate teacher changing a student's life, isn't unique. Still, it's lovely to know it happens--can still happen--especially as this brand new school year begins. Here's hoping our students connect with their Mrs. Riedlinger!
To keep the feel good going, here are my top 5 Favorite Teachers in Movies:
- Danny Divito as Bill Rago in Renaissance Man
- Sidney Poitier as Mr. Thackeray in To Sir With Love
- Michael Cane and Julie Waters in Educating Rita (not sure who's the teacher?)
- Robin Williams as John Keating in Dead Poet’s Society
- Peter O’Toole as Mr. Chipping in Goodbye Mr. Chips
If that's not enough, here's a list of MORE inspiring Teacher/Student Movies.
This blog's playlist:
--Thanks for reading!
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