Josephine was the traditional "old maid school teacher" of the time, a woman who never married and always told people that we kids were her children. She was an impeccable dresser with hair that was always perfectly coifed. Her fingernails were always painted a bright and shiny red color and although I never remember seeing her bare feet, I'm sure that her toenails must have matched. How could they not of? Her face was always made up with the most beautiful makeup and her lips were perpetually covered with shiny red lipstick to match everything else. She wore pretty dresses with sweaters and jackets to compliment them and hosiery with her ever present black high heels. Everything about her seemed perfect and the greatest thing about her was this.
She loved us. Each of us. All of us. Even the naughtiest of us.
Now that I look back at it all, I think the most amazing thing about Miss Marmont was the fact that she took care of the 30 kids in my class totally on her own. She taught us how to read and write, do arithmetic (ah for the old fashioned way of saying it), as well as teaching us art, music and P.E. I swear that she never took a bathroom break. Ever. How could she have? She never left the classroom. I have written of her many times in my blogposts and always my thoughts of her have been ones that resonated the same underlying theme.
"Miss Marmont, how did you ever manage to do it?"
I did not realize until just recently that when Josephine was my teacher, she was the very same age that I am now. Funny, she didn't appear nearly 60 back then. As a matter of fact, I'd have figured her to be more like late 40's or something. She had this eternally youthful spirit about her and any kid that spent the day with her was the recipient of that gift she had for being a teacher.
She chastised us when needed, a character trait of hers that I learned within the first hour of school on the opening day that year. My good friend Shirley and I decided to roll our brand new pencils back and forth to one another instead of listening to her. Hey, we were just learning early on how to do this thing that the future would refer to as "multi tasking". Miss Marmont didn't see it that way and after she took our brand new fat blue pencils away from us, we never saw them again. I learned right from the "get go" to be fearfully respectful of what she told us to do.
In my mind, I can never imagine being the quality of teacher that she was back then. It would be way too difficult to try and completely fill her shoes. Yet even in that, I still find myself trying to emulate her and to figure out just how she did it. We certainly don't look the same. I don't wear pretty dresses and high heeled shoes to school each day and I haven't worn makeup in my whole life. The thought of me having shiny bright red fingernails brings a smile to my face. That's probably never going to happen. So appearance wise, we are miles apart. But there is one thing that we have in common.
She loved being a teacher and she loved the children she taught and the truth is this.
So do I.
My years in education will sooner or later have to come to a stop just as hers did. In the few years that I have remaining I will continue to strive to be the kind of teacher that dear and now sainted woman was to me. Although I didn't know it at the time, Miss Marmont showed by her kind and loving example the way that children should be taught. I'm very thankful to have picked up on that. Try as I might, I probably will never be the quality of teacher that she was for us but I am guessing that would have acceptable in her eyes. She would have reminded me that no two people should ever be alike anyways. Everyone has their own gifts and talents to offer this world.
To Miss Marmont, now in Heaven, I'm beholden for the gifts she gave of herself to me. 55 years later, I still am remembering of her.
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