My mom, of course was my very first teacher. She did not get beyond seventh grade but she was a great story teller. She would sit me on her lap in a rocking chair in the porch and tell me stories of when she was a little girl. She told me the stories of Juan Bobo, The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks, Little Red Riding Hood, The Billy Goats Gruff and Gotitas de Oro amongst many others. She would sing and make me feel joyful or she would sing a tale that would make me bawl.

When I was in fourth grade, though, I had a very special teacher by the name of Mrs. Anne Hubbard. She was tall with dark hair and dark a complexion. She was neither beautiful, at least from what you could see on the outside, nor was she plain but she had an elegance about her in her dress and manner. She would wear a scarf about her neck and a comb on each side of her head would hold her dark tresses off of her smooth face. What I did find the most attractive, and so will always have a special place in my heart, about Mrs. Hubbard though, were her compassion, her love for what she did and how she could make each child in a sea of children, feel special.

I recall Mrs. Hubbard taking us to the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, to the Staten Island Zoo and even to visit the NSS Savannah the first and only, if I�m not mistaken, nuclear powered passenger-cargo ship in the world at that time. But of all the trips I remember taking with her it was the Saturday walking trips that she would take some of us on that eventually led us to a hidden and very intimate children�s theater in an old Brownstone in Brooklyn Heights that I enjoyed the most.

Pinocchio came alive in that theater as well as Hansel and Gretel and Alice in her Wonderland. But what made the time there momentous was Mrs. Hubbard who took the time to nurture us and make us feel loved. All of my school teachers were special but Mrs. Hubbard was specialer. Was there a Mrs. Hubbard in your life?

Everybody here has so nice stories about their favourite teacher and how they inpired them to become a teacher too. Well, I have a story about a Math teacher who showed me how I should not be as a teacher. I �ll call her Miss Dragon.

Every day when she entered the classroom, the whole class stood quiet. That was our greeting. Than, when she ordered, I sat, eyes down. I wanted to vanish, I always hoped not be noticed. She looked around. I was behind my desk like a little mouse waiting for the attack of the cat. "God, let her not notice me, let her call another girl to the blackboard", I prayed. Then the thunder: "Pollhammer ( this was my maiden name) to the board".

I began to shake, my eyes filled with tears, but she didn �t care. There I was, at the blackboard, ready to fight with my enemies. It wasn �t fair, there were two against one: The formulas and she who should have been my ally to master the numbers and the problems. I felt betrayed. She  was on their side and they defeated me systematically. Vanquished I got back to my seat, crying. And she didn �t care. She told me that I had no future, the only thing I could do was to become a houskeeper or something lower.

The funniest thing is that she said to my father that she did all this because she loved me, because she found me intelligent and that this was the only way to make me understand and love math. She was wrong. Not only do I hate math, but also am I unable today to solve the easiest math problem. Do you believe that I can �t solve an equation?

Against all her predictions, I got a nice future. I studied Sociology and a speak 4 languages fluently and I can read two more.  I �m a language teacher now. Could I speak to her in hell ( where she must be) I would say : " Mrs. Dragon. You have been my model. You haven �t been successful with maths, but I have learnt HOW NOT TO TEACH! And I �m really thankful.