Speaking of great teachers, I want to celebrate two of my high school English teachers, Dorothy C. Ferster (above) and Mae P. Brown. 

I took Mrs. Brown’s English class my sophomore year, second semester. We read classics like Gulliver’s Travels and A Modest Proposal by Jonathon Swift and Looking Backward, a novel by Edward Bellamy. Her insights made these wonderful stories come alive, and she helped us think critically about the authors’ intentions versus the skills required to make their work successful across different eras and cultures. 

Mrs. Brown was “old school” in her relationships with students. You never doubted her authority or the fact that she was in command of the subject matter.  When a student misbehaved in class (we were sophomores after all), she was calm but firm. As a result, Mrs. Brown was someone students respected and looked up to.  I’m grateful for all that Mrs. Brown taught me—about English literature and about life. 

In Mrs. Ferster’s classes my senior year, we read Shakespeare and the Bronte sisters and many other masterpieces of English literature. It was pure joy. Her love for these great works was transparent and contagious. I still remember an animated discussion she led about “the pathetic fallacy” (an author’s use of nature to illustrate ideas or moods in a story). 

Mrs. Ferster taught me to be a writer. “You have the potential to be a great writer,” she once told me. “But you’re not there yet. From now on I’m going to give you two separates grades for each essay. One will be for style. The other will be for content.”

Mrs. Ferster was teaching me to be more than a facile writer. She wanted me to be substantive. She could tell that it was relatively easy for me to sit down and compose something on paper, but I didn’t always take the time to research my subject or to make sure that my content (as she called it) was as good as my writing style. 

I am deeply indebted to these strong, intelligent and caring women for their efforts to help me grow as a person and as someone who appreciates English language and literature. I doubt that I would have been even modestly successful as a writer if it were not for their guidance and encouragement. 

Looking back more than 50 years to the formation I received from these (and several other) great teachers fills me with a profound sense of gratitude. A thousand thanks to Mae Brown and Dorothy Ferster for the gifts they gave me as a young man!