They said it couldn’t be done.

I spent over 49 years of my life in a formal school setting. Most of those years were spent as a teacher. All of those years were spent as a learner, whether I was sitting in the pupil’s chair or the teacher’s. I learned a lot over all those years. One of my most memorable moments in all my schooling years happened when I was in 5th grade as a student. It involved trust, respect and willingness of my 5th grade teacher to believe in our class.

The setting was P.S. 81 in the Bronx. The year was 1961. My teacher was Miss Hurrell.

For some reason Miss Hurrell had to leave school early one afternoon. It was the practice at the time that if your teacher was out for a partial day, you would either have a substitute teacher or your class would be split up between the other classes in the school. On this particular afternoon, they could not find a substitute and it was decided not to split up our class. The only alternative left was to leave our class unattended for the afternoon. Today, that would be an unthinkable alternative. In fact I’m pretty sure that it was an unthinkable alternative at that time too.

Despite its potential outcomes, Miss Hurrell convinced the powers that be to let our class remain intact, by ourselves for the afternoon. She provided work for us to do and had other teachers in the building stop in periodically to see how we were doing. All I can remember from that afternoon, was that you could hear a pin drop in the classroom. We were focused and diligent in the tasks that she left for us. I do remember teachers popping into the room periodically and amazed, by the look on their faces, at how well we did on our own. They never stayed very long.

Miss Hurrell’s belief and trust in us was well founded for that one day. Our class got many complements and the feeling that I retained from the whole experience has lasted a long time. I don’t think that this was the driving force that led me to become a teacher, but it certainly was an influential one. It certainly guided my actions in my profession as a teacher, always striving to gain the trust and respect that we had had for Miss Hurrell.

It must also be noted, that though this experiment was a tremendous success, Miss Hurrell never tried to duplicate it, which was probably a wise decision.