Lynn Slaughter

Photo by Agence Olloweb on Unsplash

From an early age, I knew I wanted to teach. I adored my second-grade teacher. Her name was Gladys Louden. She was warm and kind and read out loud to us every day. My favorite was The Boxcar Children, and I attribute much of my lifelong love of reading to Miss Louden. I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. She made a huge impression on me.

Of course, so did my fourth-grade teacher, who wasn’t nearly as nice. I still remember the day we were working on drawings of characters from fairy tales. My friend Linda Goldsmith was working on a beautiful drawing of a princess. After a few minutes, our teacher gruffly told us we’d spent “long enough” on our drawings, and it was time to hand them in. Linda, who was quite a perfectionist, insisted she wasn’t quite done. I recall the teacher grabbing her paper and saying, “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not like your drawing is any better than anyone else’s.”

Quite a putdown, and I knew it wasn’t true. Linda was the best artist in the class. This was one of her special gifts, and I hated how that teacher dismissed her work. I vowed then and there that I would never treat a student the way this teacher had treated my friend.

Even in those days, I was taking notes on what I did and didn’t want to do by watching other people in my life. On the home front, I loved and admired my single parent father whose prodigious work ethic greatly influenced my own determination to work hard and well. But he was a terrible example of seeking to know, understand, and listen to the needs and feelings of his children. He was sure that he knew what was best and did his darndest to impose his life scripts on his three daughters.

Needless to say, that didn’t work out particularly well. His example and the pain it caused made a huge impression on me. Not surprisingly, listening carefully and supporting my own children, as well as my students, in pursuing their interests and passions is something I’ve tried very hard to do. It’s also appeared as a theme in my novels, in which characters often struggle with forging their own paths, despite parental pressure and lack of acceptance.

So, while the good examples in our lives inspire us, we learn a lot as well from the bad ones. They also help guide us, both in our relationships with others and our creative work.