The Wizard of Oz

When I was in first grade, my teacher (don't remember her name) was an enthusiastic and creative teacher. She had a way of making things fun. She laughed a lot and told us wonderful stories of her life and her family.

She gave us wonderful art materials to work with, all sorts of different things that we hadn't gotten to work with before. There was the usual clay and paint and crayons, but we also did papier mache, sculpture and a number of other things. Brave lady, that teacher was!

One of my favorite times of the day was story time. She read us all kinds of adventure stories that stimulated our imaginations. I think I learned to love books in first grade. She read us "The Wizard of Oz," and this was no children's version. It was the real deal! She would read a little bit to us each day after lunch. The honored ones of the day, two of us, would be chosen to come up and rub her shoulders--one of us on each side.

I think listening to the Wizard of Oz read aloud, with no pictures mind you, helped me develop this ability to picture things in my head. With these pictures in my head and the words flowing I would be on the edge of my seat listening to every single chapter with excitement and anticipation. I developed lots of comprehension skills that weren't even necessarily emphasized back then: predicting what is next, character analysis, comparing and contrasting, etc. I wasn't that smart, really, I just loved the story so much that I sort of did those things naturally.

I became an excellent reader and that has carried me through college and grad school and made me a lifelong learner.

Unfortunately, that excellence did not carry over into math, but that is for a later post!