In Englewood I went to Beale School, just a block away from home, from the fourth grade to the eighth grade. When I got to seventh grade in 1956-57 I had a teacher named Mr. Zimmerman who used to wear these blue serge suits all the time. He was a very quiet man. Not that we were bad, but he really controlled the class without hardly saying anything. I think the kids might have been a little bit afraid of him. Mr. Zimmerman would make us take a nap in the afternoon, which was unusual in seventh grade. But in fact it was very important to me, because I was always daydreaming. It didn’t take much to set my imagination off, and I couldn’t wait. The year before, I used to walk past his classroom, I remember, and wish I were in his class. I couldn’t wait to get to seventh grade because I knew that they took a nap, and I saw that nap as their dream time.
But the important thing was, he would play classical music during our nap period. For almost forty-five minutes in the afternoon, Mr. Zimmerman would tell the kids to put their heads down and rest, and he would go and stand at the window and stare out the window as if he were remembering something. I think he was a veteran, maybe from the Korean War. There was something about him. After becoming a veteran myself I can kind of spot certain things in people, especially people that have been in war zones. I can’t tell from people who’ve never been in a war zone—they don’t have any of the little signature kinds of things I can pick up on—but with people that have been in those kinds of dynamic situations, there are telltale signs. I’m sure there was something like that going on with Mr. Zimmerman, because he would use that period for some type of reflection and meditation. And he was a good teacher. He explained things well.
No comments:
Post a Comment