english homework

Write the narrative part of your Extended Definition of the term “real teacher” and upload it into my email 9:00 P.m., Tus, 24 October 2013.  If you fail to do so,  Your
narrative, which gives an actual, clearly-rendered incident containing living, breathing renditions of place, time and person, will illustrate in detail your ‘teacher demonstrating through her actions her qualities as a real teacher.

Niloc Retseh

ENG 102-007

Professor Hester

XD: Teachers — Winter 2013

The Winters of My Discontent

All  through  grade  school  in  suburban  Toronto,  Canada  during  the  late  ‘50s  and  

early  ‘60s,  I’d never been much of an artist. I’d never been much of anything except

the puny, non-descript, barely noticeable little brother of my older sister, Dawne. Dawne,

upon her birth, had managed to corral all the “looks”  and  “brains”  chromosomes

available in our family gene pool. Thus ill-equipped and all alone, I spent my years in

school traipsing dutifully in my sister’s footsteps, a year behind and one grade at a time.

As I did, my teachers would marvel at and even wonder aloud at how I could possibly

even remotely be related to her.

Until the seventh grade. That year I had Mrs Winters. That year I learned to

paint. That year I learned to see.

I, of course, learned nothing of the kind. I was taught it — taught it by a real

teacher. What’s a real teacher? A real teacher doesn’t  just  monitor our comings and

goings. A real teacher doesn’t just evaluate our musings and moanings. A real teacher

doesn’t  even  just  open gates or doors for us. Rather, a real teacher not only gatekeeps

محمد الظفيري

محمد الظفيري

محمد الظفيري

محمد الظفيري

the open door for us, but she beckons us forth with a map, a map not only of the world
beyond us, but the much more revealing world within.

Mrs Winters revealed to me that world within. A full-bosomed, gray-haired
woman, Mrs Winters looked as pretty as a grandmother in a Broadway musical — looks
which, in those ancient days, people would term “handsome.”    From  Mondays  to  
Fridays, Mrs Winters taught grammar and reading, but on Wednesdays, from the end of
lunch-hour on, she taught art. During those afternoons, Mrs Winters taught us how to
make a paper maché mask actually look like it was crying; she taught us how to make a
pipe-cleaner leopard freeze in predatory full flight. Most importantly, the Wednesday of
our first painting class, Mrs Winters taught me how to see.
That Wednesday, I had spent the entire first half of the afternoon just splotching
watercolor onto paper into some sort of non-modernistic abstract mess, all-the while
remaining desperate for afternoon recess to arrive. When recess finally came and all
the other boys went roaring outside to resume our lunch-hour touch football game, Mrs
Winters asked me to stay behind. Just for a few minutes, she added. We were standing
by the window that looked out over the playground and playing fields, and I kept
glancing out the corner of my eye as everyone seamlessly arranged themselves into the
same two squads they had been during lunch hour. Mrs Winters asked why I hadn’t  
painted anything. I shrugged and said I didn’t  know what to paint. She watched me
as I continued to glance longingly out the window. She asked me if I liked football. I
told her I loved it. She paused. Then she took me by the arm and looked into my eyes

and told me  a  truth.    “You’re different  than  those  boys,”  she  said.    I blinked, staring at
her wide-eyed.    “But  you already know that,”  she said. I swallowed. Hard. I thought I
would cry. Back then, I was not a big fan of the truth, especially when it came to truths
about myself — a character flaw I’ve  yet to even partially amend. But back then Mrs
Winters continued:  “You are as smart and as gifted as your sister. You just  don’t  know
that yet. Now, go on,”  she  said.    “Off to your football. I will find you something to
paint.”
When I returned, sweaty, fifteen minutes later, waiting on my desk was a page
from a magazine. I guessed,  because  of  the  page’s  glossy-ness, from Sports Illustrated.
The photo was an action photo of the gifted flanker Bobby Mitchell of the Washington
Redskins. The photographer had captured him making a one-handed, fingertip catch
high above his helmeted head. An amazing catch. An amazing image: just Mitchell. No
other players. No crowd. Just Mitchell. Number 49. All alone.
I asked Mrs Winters if she meant for me to copy it. And she told me, no.
“Don’t copy it,” she said. “Paint it. But don’t paint the one on the magazine page.
Paint the one behind your eyes. The one inside your mind.” “But  how?”  I asked,
“how?”    “Just  look,”  she  said,  “look.” And so I looked.
What was also right there, when I looked, was that truth about myself and that is
really what she taught me — what all real teachers teach: a way at looking out at the
world and at the same time into ourselves. In my case, into my alone-ness.

How well did Mrs Winters teach me? A couple of autumns later, my first months in high
school, we listened to a morning announcement that told of the visit, during lunch
periods that day, of a city-wide display of student art from grades K through eight, each
artwork selected for its merit. I ignored the display of course but sometime during that
afternoon, a girl in my class told me how much she liked my painting. I was speechless.
“In  the  display,”  the girl added. Unable to resit, between classes I somehow managed
to steal a moment to return to the cafeteria hallway. And there he was, after all those
years, just as I’d  left him — or, rather, how Mrs Winters, my real teacher, had left him:
Number 49. His arm stretched high, the ball on his fingertips. Bobby Mitchell. No
longer alone.
Nor was I.