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Linda Fetter was my best teacher. She’s almost certainly retired or maybe not even alive anymore based on her age when I first met her and how many years it has been since I graduated high school, therefore I think it’s okay to mention her by name here. I have never seen anything about her online, so I doubt she’ll ever know about this post even if she is still with us.
The first class I took with her was ninth grade Language Arts, and I loved how clearly she explained the grammar lessons she taught to us. She knew just how to use the right metaphors when we weren’t quite getting it.
Our class was the first period of the day. If we acted too sleepy, she’d have us stand up and do a few jumping jacks to get our blood pumping which I always found amusing.
Later on I took a mandatory speech course as well as two elective courses with her that involved nothing but reading from a pre-selected list of classic novels. The latter were a nice break from the classes I took that had heavy homework loads as all she required of us was that we spend a few minutes reading every night after school. It was so much easier than conjugating irregular Spanish verbs or trying to figure out quadratic equations.
She also added little flourishes to her lessons that I will never forget. For example, she’d play classical music and give us peppermints to suck on during exams because she’d read studies that showed those things improved test scores. (Whether they are still thought to be helpful, I don’t know. She paid attention to the latest academic research of the time, though.)
Sometimes we’d go outside for class at the end of the year when the weather was really nice. That was always a refreshing break from the stuffy classrooms as our school didn’t have air conditioning and it could get rather hot and humid by the beginning of June.
I loved the care and concern she showed for her students and wished she could have taught Language Arts for grades 10, 11, and 12 as well.