Jodi Hills

So this is who I am – a writer that paints, a painter that writes…

Tag Archives: teach


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What’s taught is what’s known.

Miss McCarty said the composition must be typed. This was in my tenth grade year. A year when typewriters still existed. A year before I would take typing class. A year when senior girls would type your paper for ten dollars. A year when ten dollars coming out of my mother’s paycheck (a paycheck from the very school that requested the typed composition) could rock our monthly budget enough that something else had to be denied. A year when I couldn’t bear to be that rocking cause. 

Miss McCarty was, for the most part, terrifying. I sat in the front row because I thought it would be easier “to see it coming.” Oh, there were some teenage boys that tested her, but only once. I always finished my homework. Early. And I my handwriting was neat. It was my last class of the day. The final bell rang. I sat in my seat. I had two copies of my composition, not yet due for several days. One in cursive. One printed. “You can read it easily,” I tried to explain. “No,” she said. I could feel it welling, this one tear. I willed it not to escape. It rested on my eyelash. She tidied her desk. Stood up. Starting walking to the door. I stayed seated. “I don’t have it,” I quivered. “What?” she asked. “The ten dollars. I don’t have it.” She took the papers from me. Put them on her desk. “It has to be typed,” she said and walked me out the door. The tear let go and I walked across Jefferson Street.  

I don’t know if she paid for it. If she typed it herself. But when I returned to class the next day, it was sitting on my chair. Typed. I looked up at her. She wasn’t smiling, but she gave me a nod. And it was done. 

I turned it back in with the other students. I knew she didn’t want a gushing thank you. That wasn’t her style. 

She returned the graded papers. I received an A, and a note at the bottom — “You can always find a way.” I caught her eye and nodded. 

I’m typing with my left hand and two on my right. Ever healing. Ever grateful. Finding my way. 

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Building soul.

According to the song, we were not yet even “puppies,” but each morning around 8:15 — just after being dropped off of the school bus at Washington Elementary, and just before Miss Green began our 5th grade class — we sang alongside the turntable with Donny Osmond, “And they called it puppy love
Just because we’re in our teens…”

Of course we weren’t in our teens, but even just having a record player, we felt old enough to experience all the emotions. The closest we actually got to boys was playing four square on the playground. We rotated through the boxes, never touching, hovering somewhere between wanting to beat them and wanting to be liked. I suppose we thought the answers would come in the next song. But none of us actually had the money to buy a new 45 at Carlson’s Music Center, so we sang it again and again, “

Someone, help me, help me, help me please. Is the answer up above? How can I, oh how can I tell them,this is not a puppy love.”We began to lean on Mr. Iverson, our music teacher. Each week he gathered us together to learn a new song — new meaning new to us, but certainly old, perhaps older than our parents. We were desperate for new. “Please please please,” we begged, “let us sing something from the radio.” Our hands shot up straight in the air when he asked for suggestions. “Seasons in the sun” was the overwhelming response. They played it constantly on KDWB, the radio station that intermittantly came in from Minneapolis. Unfamiliar with the lyrics, he said he would play the record and decide. He placed it on the turntable and immediatlely his face turned. None of us had heard the actual verses. We were all just mesmorized by the chorus — “We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun…” Unfortunately, the majority of the song was about dying. Somehow we had missed that. He scratched the record racing to get the needle out of the groove. I guess we were all in such a hurry to become older, at least puppies, that we missed it.

And that’s the gift, isn’t it? I’m always surprised as summer turns into fall. It happens year after year, and I’m still hovering between the bus ride and when class actually begins. Luxuriating in the 15 minutes of unsupervised freedom. Still ready to believe. To become. To begin again.

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A stroke of Mrs. Bergstrom.

There is a reason we call it spelling. The magic of the letters, when put together to form words, can indeed cast a magical spell within and around us. 

She stood in front of the class of first graders. Mrs. Bergstrom. Tall and straight. Not with a robe, nor a hat, but she did have a wand. Some might remember it as just a teaching pointer. But not me. As she tapped it against each letter chalked perfectly on the blackboard, white dust — fairy dust I was sure — sprung into the air. We were spelling. And it was magic. 

That magic moved from the blackboard to our Big Chief notebooks. Then marched with us single file to the library down the terrazzo halls of Washington Elementary. With each book we moved into neighborhoods. Made friends with dogs. Rode horses with cowboys and bloomed into teenage girls, and boys with paper routes. Everything was possible in the words. 

I’d like to think it still is. As I type each morning, I take that magical journey. With each letter I make a path. Sprinkling it with a stroke of Mrs. Bergstrom. Because it’s all beautiful, even the hardest of days — when wanded into the words of “look what we survived,” and “look what we’ve become” — are nothing short of magical! I still believe it. I have to believe it. I hope we all can.

Because she didn’t just give us the happy words. She taught us how to spell. How to make our way through it all. Today, I too will stand straight and tall. And I promise, I will not waste the magic.

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Each song has wings.

The worse we sang, the balder he got. Each wrong note hit in our seventh grade choir raised Mr. Dehlin’s hand to the top of his head, rubbing in desperation. How could he direct us to the right note? He seemed to be willing the answer inside his brain with the hand that carried the baton.

I don’t remember the note, nor the song, but no one in the alto section seemed to be hitting it. He directed David Alstead to hit the note on the piano. Again. And again. The note rang through the choir room. The problem was that that one poor note had to compete with all of the noise in our teenage heads. The noise of the upcoming exams in English and Math. Who was dating whom. Who was about to break up. Why was she wearing that? Would we be invited to the dance? Would there be time to get to get to the locker room to grab the forgotten book? Who would we sit next to on the bus. Again! — he pointed the baton at David. Again! He played the note and we sang something close to it as a section, but not close enough. Mr. Dehlin went down the line of altos, pointing the baton at each person. One by one. Note by note. Each missing by a hair – a hair that seemingly fell from his head to the floor. Twice through the line. Getting closer each time. He had our attention now. And we sang. We sang that glorious note. He raised both hands in the air, then collapsed them to his knees. We all cheered (in the right key!). It was only a note. But he got us there. There was still a whole song to learn. But he gave us our victory. Our moment. He stood tall again. Tapped the baton on the music stand. Gave a look to David. One quick flick of the baton, and we were off – in song!

Through our junior high years we held countless concerts. Parents gave us standing ovations for the mere fact of being born. But it was that impossible note reached that I remember the most. And what it took to get us there.

My love for music has never faltered. It has layed beside me during the darkest times. Danced with me through the highest. Pushed my lawn mowing legs. Moved my paintings, stroke by stroke. Brightened breakfasts. Made sacred each holiday, each friendship. Gave me the soundtrack for hellos and goodbyes. Note by note.

I suppose we never forget those who walk with us, battle with us, just to get us through — see us through — to become our best selves… those who give us not only the note, but also a reason to sing!

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Three minutes in the deep end.

My mother didn’t know how to swim. But she knew how to drive. And from the age of six, even on the harshest winter Saturday morning, she dropped me off at the Central Junior High School pool for swimming lessons. Under the domed roof, we learned to crawl – the crawl stroke. We learned to breathe, and to hold that breath. To trust our bodies. We learned the side stroke – pick an apple and put it in the basket. The breast stroke. The backstroke. We learned to dive. We learned to tread water. Three minutes in the deep end with our hands in the air. We swam 50 laps to pass the exam. We would be safe in any of the 10,000 lakes.

At noon my mother would pick me up. I exited the glass doors that surrounded the pool. Head steaming in the cold air, I wondered if my long blonde strands would freeze. They never did. My mother was never late to pick me up. Never. I never worried that she wouldn’t come.

Perhaps that is the sole reason I dared to go in the deep end. That I still do.

Teach me with honesty and I will know trust. Teach me with gentleness and I will know strength. Teach me with kindness and I will know love.