We all have that one adult in our life, teacher or friend, who looks deeper than others do; who sees potential where others see trouble. My 4th grade English teacher Mrs. Nabee was that adult in my life. Being a little troubled and absent-minded, she realized that writing was one of my greatest interests and pushed me into the universe of books. Ma’am, if you ever come across this article, Thank you!. You opened up worlds’ that would have otherwise been ignored forever.

It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with books and decide that English was my favourite subject. The first book we read in her class was Pinocchio and reading out loud in class became a lot more fun. She never once made any of us feel stupid or silly, especially if we mispronounced or didn’t know the meaning of any word. She had a way of explaining that made us visualize the words in our minds. I have now come to know that is a power very few teachers possess or even have half a tumbler of talent for. I can’t imagine the amount of homework she must have assigned to herself to make sure our minds remained in her class, all through the year. My favourite project in her class was when she had us all make caterpilars with chart papers, to be stuck on our class notice boards. We had to cut out circles and each circle would contain the name of a book we had finished, which when put together would become a caterpilar. The student with the longest caterpillar, at the end of a term was given a reward; a sweet treat and a smile or a pat on the back… But boy, did we all wait for that smile!!! One that acknowledged pride in us.

At the end of that year, we had a ‘class party’; translation – free for all junk food she sponsored and a music system blasting out the latest tunes through cassettes. (Do I feel old now!!). The last thing thoughtful, loving act she did for us that year was to draw a tree full of leaves on the blackboard. Each leaf contained the name of a student in that class. She took the extra effort to make us feel special. Any other teacher would have popped in and then waltzed out within 5 minutes, not Mrs. Nabee.

So Mrs. Nabee, I hope you’ve fulfilled whatever you wanted out of life and it is still full of happiness. I really hope we will met once more in this life so that I can give you what I couldn’t so many years ago; a heartfelt thanks and a big hug!!

Sincerely

Miss Absent-mind from the Class of 98′-99′