Valentine,7 an African American woman in her midfortics, is relatively new to the district, having come from the Midwest after her husband's company transferred him to the West Coast. She considers herself a strict teacher and she has a flair for the dramatic, waving her arms and rolling her eyes to get a point across. She attended a historically black college and identi­fies closely with the students because many of them are from single-parent households and her own upbringing was in a single- parent home.

48.FOREWORD TO THE NEW EDITION 6

Valentine has taught in both inner-city and suburban schools. Her experiences with teaching more affluent white students has convinced her that African American students have special strengths that are rarely recognized in schools. She is very sensitive to what she perceives as slights made on the basis of race by the school administration. Her principal does not seem to like her personally but he does not hesitate to acknowledge her as one of the best teachers in the school.

reach MBT Shoes Clearance for unusual adjectivcs. This class is held in Octobcr and so she benefits from a Halloween atmosphere. She writes a noun on the chalkboard and asks the children to think of as many words as they can to describe it. The first noun is "witch." Tentatively at first, students begin to offer some modifiers. "Old witch," says one student. "Mean witch," says another. "Black witch," offers a Vibram Five Fingers third. All of a sudden, Peggy grasps her chest as if she were having a heart attack and rolls her eyes back in their sockets. "Black witch, old witch, mean witch—give me a break! You guys arc killin' me! I need some great, fantastic, outstanding, stupendous, magnificent adjectives. Til even take some compound adjectives. Can anybody save me?" After Discount MBT a few snickers,Discount MBT Shoes, one boy
Vibramventures, "How Discount MBT Shoes about a green-faced, hook-nose, evil witch?" "Yes!" shouts Peggy Valentine. "Now you're cookin' with gas. Give me more, more!" The lesson proceeds with students shouting out a variety of compound and complex adjective phrases to revive the "dying" Valentine. The lesson goes on for almost forty minutes.

Alice Hall became my sixth-grade teacher after our original sixth- grade teacher, Mr. Moses, was /nomoted to assistant principal. Mr. Moses was a tall white man, one of the few male teachers at our school. While he was our teacher, he seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time chatting with Miss Pltmkett, a pretty white teacher across the hall, l ie sat at his desk a lot. From there he told us what pages to read in our textbooks. Whenever we finished our work we were allowed to draw. I did a lot of drawing while he was our teacher.
I was one of the few students excited about Mrs. Hairs move from fourth to sixth grade. I knew her from flute club and I knew she had many talents MBT Shoes Sale and interests. She was a magnificent knitter and she would teach that skill to anyone who was interested. She was a gifteil musician and always taught her students to play the flutophone. One of her strongest subject areas was mathematics and she helped students to delve deeply into its mysteries. Some of the students didn't like Mrs. Hall. Unlike Mr. Moses she required us to work—hard. Many students grumbled but everyone learned. Many years later I saw her at a commencement ceremony at a local college where she was a faculty member. She hail become a mathematics professor.