Probably the two most crucial professional teachers I ever had were Alpha Rossetti and Walter Dobbs. One (Rossetti) was a decades’-long pro already; the other a rookie, just out of college on his first assignment (but we Cle Elum kids “raised him up” right fast!). He didn’t last in the teaching profession for very long but that’s because he was misundertood by the powers that be and treated terribly by them. I remember teacher Stu Juris — who was our next door neighbor — telling me one time, “Poor Wally Dobbs.  We didn’t know what we had.” (The powers that be fired him for some reason unknown to me. I will never understand it, especially since they kept Mrs. McCoy on, who was a fiasco — my opinion — as a guide and teacher.)

 

Mrs. Alpha Rossetti

 

 

Mrs.Rossetti was a junior high (what we call middle school these days) teacher. To hear tell it, kids either loved or disliked her. My little sister told me decades ago that she disliked her because she kept comparing her to her two older siblings, both of whom were eager, dedicated, and adept students, while Jackie was never into school in the ways we were.

 

It’s probably rarely a good strategy for teachers to compare and contrast siblings’ academic achievements but, in Mrs. Rossetti’s case, I think she was trying to encourage Jackie and let her know that she (Mrs. R) felt Jackie had equal abilities to excel and that by applying herself more assiduously, she could achieve beyond her wildest aspirations. Jackie probably took that as a putdown and I’m sorry she did. In Jackie’s case, she loathed being compared to her siblings (and often appeared to loathe her siblings, as well!) so being asked to try to be more like them was a nonstarter for her.

 

Jackie was also a bit of a rebel in other ways so she chapped teachers’ hides. Instead of regurgitating teachers’ so-called facts and figures, if she knew they were spouting nonsense, she let them have it.

 

As one example, one time when she was in grade school (she’s a farm kid, remember, pretty well versed in animal husbandry) the teacher told her class that, in the Andes, the people raise llamas and that the females were raised and used  to produce babies and milk and their hair was used  in various ways, but all the males were destroyed, considered too economically deficient to be of sufficient value to keep them alive (as are male calves in the dairy industry and as male chicks are in the egg-producing industry, sadly).

 

Well! Jackie raised her hand and protested, “That’s not true. If they destroyed all the male llamas, there would be no female or baby llamas!”  The teacher was made speechless by that bold, fact-based response and considered Jackie a rebel.

 

No, Jackie just called out malarkey whenever she heard it. (Unfortunately, these days she can’t discern the difference between calculated disinformation and genuine news, so she has fallen victim to Faux Noise and their now well-documented propaganda, so she has bought a handgun and been taught how to use it. (Even her misnamed WELCOME mat is a veiled threat. It has a handgun on it and something about PREPARE TO MEET JESUS). Her world is fearful; my world is wonderful! (Same world! Who’s happier?) 

 

“Two men looked out through prison bars.

One man saw dirt, the other stars.”

 

IQ TESTS

 

Because learning came so easily to me (except for New Math and Science/Biology), I wasn’t much of a studier, per se. I could read a textbook and remember enough of it to pass tests and get good grades, but when we were given IQ tests in middle school, mine came back around 145, so Mom sat me down and told me I had the brains to do even better and she expected me to do so, post haste.  So, I did, given documented proof that I was capable of more, with a bit more effort.

 

Back to Alpha 

 

Alpha Rossetti (in later years, after I graduated, she encouraged me to call her Alpha, but I never could get past the RESPECT she had earned as a teacher, so I never was able to breach that hurdle in her presence) thought, and told me, I was amay-zing as a writer and speller.  I remember one time she asked me to spell schizophrenic for her.  I didn’t even know what the word meant, but I immediately knew how to spell it!  When I did, she said, “I was looking in the dictionary under ski and scit and skit and when I couldn’t find it, I knew you would probably know!”  (How I knew is beyond me to this day, but I just KNEW!)

 

As mentioned earlier, we were a struggling farm family. The income that came into our family was anemic, so the only magazines that Mom had coming into our house were National Geographic, TV Guide and Reader’s Digest, plus the occasional Life Magazine (publications the whole family could enjoy and receive benefit from).  We simply didn’t have the budget for specialty magazines that individual family members might want to subscribe to.

 

One day after Mrs.Rossetti had regaled me with what a good writer I was (once again) — I think I had written a Becky Thatcher/Tom Sawyer homage to my favorite writer, Mark Twain, and she was simply astounded that I had captured his writing style as apparently flawlessly as I did; “I could believe Mark Twain wrote this as I read it!” I recall her saying at that time) — I thanked her for the accolade and then implored, “Help me write even better!”

 

I watched her face fall. She considered that a request she simply couldn’t fulfill.

 

I was taken aback by her sudden silence.

 

But then she explained.”Kris, I can’t teach you to be a better writer. I’m not a writer. But I am a reader — and I know great writing when I see it!”

 

It was at that moment that I realized educators have limits when it comes to how much they can teach, and I felt bad for having asked her.  As an English teacher, Mrs. Rossetti knew how to teach students to write pleasantly and properly (she blessed me with her ever-present, handy-dandy Plain English Handbook by Walsh when she retired), but she didn’t know how to teach us to write powerfully.

 

 

But it wasn’t even a month later when THE WRITER magazine started showing up in our mailbox at home. I knew to look for it, because Mrs. Rossetti told me she had subscribed to it for me for two years. So, although she couldn’t counsel me sufficiently to up my game, she looked for a source that could, and she didn’t want me to be held back by my family’s meager income. (She didn’t explain her gift to me that way: I am discerning why she did it, in retrospect.)

 

The Writer Magazine became my bible and Mrs. Rossetti became my greatest teacher of all time with that amazingly kind and thoughtful gesture.

 

She told me the truth about myself (the good and the bad; you read about the bad in an earlier post!) and helped me realize my potential as a writer.

 

My parents, in sharp contrast, were decidely cool about my plan to become a writer. They worried that I would starve to death unless I got a “real job” that could support me reliably.  They didn’t know about the upcoming Internet and Information Age. Neither did Mrs. Rossetti or I.  But we both knew that writing was in my blood, so she helped in every way she could to help me compete in what was then such rarified atmosphere. And because of her kindness and foresight, when the Information Age came along and people needed copy and content to fill it, I was ready to capitalize on the need, thanks to Mrs. Rossetti.

 

I was so saddened when she passed away.  I was in California when it happened, and her daughter Susan wrote to let me know. I was as devastated as her family was. And that’s no exaggeration.

 

I will carry her in my grateful heart forever. I STILL dream about her occasionally.  I guess we “visit” in that way at least once every few years. I expect to hear from her again soon, as a direct result of sharing this with y’all!

 

Mr. Dobbs — The Rookie

 

Mr. Dobbs had a handicap from the get-go. His surname was a source of mirth in Cle Elum because there was a Dobbs family in town whose kids were frequently the cruel butt of students’ jokes.  So, when he was introduced during a school assembly, I heard snickers and guffaws.  NOT a rousing welcome, for sure. I’m sure the sense of derision scared him spitless, since he had no understanding of its source.

 

On the first day of class, he came prepared to take on a rowdy, unruly big city student body, I think. His plan appeared to be to Lay Down the Law and get the Upper Hand on Minute One of Day One.

 

The problem was, although Cle Elum students were being given a world class education, we were already pretty well indoctrinated as to how to behave in class, so we didn’t respond well to Mr. Dobbs’ efforts to Control Us.  We were already controlled, but we were also enthusiastic and decidedly interactive.  Enthusiasm wasn’t considered a detriment in Cle Elum!

 

So, when I first connected with Mr. Dobbs, I did so with enthusiasm.  And he rebuffed me.  I remember offering an on-topic suggestion about something or other, and he said, “Please write it down and submit it to me.”

 

That was odd!

 

I tried again, and again got back, more sternly this time, “Write it down and submit it to me.”

 

Exasperated, I finally said, “Oh, just forget it!”

 

Which wasn’t at all like me, but I had never run into a teacher (except for the odious Mrs. McCoy, noted earlier) and I thought, “Oh, boy, here we go again.”

 

I had no intention of engaging with him ever again. As far as I was concerned, our brief, unpleasant encounter would be the last one. It was DONE! Put  a fork in it!

 

But then he put something like this up on the blackboard/greenboard:

 

Smith  Andrew Junior

Southhampton Arms

NPR 0640

3786 Blah Blah Blah

…and asked us if any of us could make heads or tails out of it.

 

I looked at what he had put up there, discerned it to be a mixed up mailing address for someone (likely in the UK), and raised my hand.

 

He saw me raise my hand, ignored it, and then said, “Anyone who could make sense out of that mismash will never be a writer.”

 

WTF?!

 

The other students in my class saw my hand go up, heard his response, and one of them (Gayle Danko, if I’m not misremebering my advocate) protested mightily. “Kris is the best writer in our class!”

 

Poor Mr. Dobbs! He was outgunned and outnumbered. We Cle Elum kids weren’t making Getting the Upper Hand easy for him!

 

But he learned. FAST!  Within weeks (maybe even days) he became one of Cle Elum students’ most beloved teachers.

 

Why and how?

 

He hit the slags with the “rebels” on his motorcycle every chance he could, adapted to our school’s culture, and engaged and encouraged us as individuals. As I mentioned in an earlier thread, he was the one who volunteered to be our bicycling buddy and chaperone when we planned to ride bikes to Hollywood to meet the Star Trek cast and crew. He was game.  He was all in.

 

Despite our rocky, Elaine McCoy-like beginning, Mr. Dobbs became my favorite high school teacher, hands down. He and our Drama teacher, Mr. Oleson, made high school the delightful memory it has become and will always remain.

 

I met Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs later on, not more than about ten years ago now, and I was sad to see that he never quite recovered from being let go as a teacher.  It utterly destroyed his confidence.

 

So, I will repeat Mr. Juris’s astute postmortem. “Poor Wally Dobbs. We never realized what we had going for us when we had him.”

 

Indeed they didn’t.  With tragic consequences.