Ms. Bennett's 4th grade class - as was typical of my childhood, I was a quiet and shy, preferring the company of my best friend Scott rather than being in the spotlight or with the "popular" crowd. Teachers loved me as I basically kept to myself and never gave them much grief. But Ms. Bennett will always hold a special place in my heart as far as teachers go.

There seemed to be something special in the way she regarded me, almost like the way a mother holds a special place in her heart for her son. She was always kind and seemed to push me to my potential, unlike most teachers.

At the time, I was such an avid reader that the school librarian knew me on a first-name basis. In fact, Mrs. Maloney often reserved new books that they just received specially for me. It wasn't uncommon for me to leave the library with tens of books on any given week, only to return them the next week after I had read them all. I read everything from the Black Stallion books, Matt's Christopher's fictional sports books, to Beverly Cleary, to C.S. Lewis' Narnia books. My hunger for reading material was insatiable.

One fond memory I will always have of Ms. Bennett's class was the fact that she read on a daily basis to us. Sometime during the afternoon, my classmates and I would all gather around her at the front of the classroom while she read to us a part of a chapter of whatever novel she wanted to share with us. In this case, she read "Where the Red Fern Grows," by Wilson Rawls. I enjoyed that book so much that I actually went out and bought my own copy which I finished shortlly after I bought it. Even though I never told her that I had finished the book and that I knew the ending of the story, I think she knew that I had done so. I made sure not to say anything to my classmates that would give away the ending. And I still remember crying the day she finished reading the book to all of us. There were very few dry eyes that afternoon.

As memorable as that experience was, the most memorable experience from that school year was the reading curriculum she used called SRAs. Several times a week, we were required to go to the SRA box which was located on the window sill at the rear of the classroom and pick out several reading cards to work on. Essentially, the SRA curriculum had various levels of difficulty which were color coded (the lighter colors were easier whereas purples and browns were the last levels in the program). Within each level of difficulty, there were anywhere from twenty to thirty 8 1/2 x 11 cards with various reading. After reading the passage on the card, we were supposed to answer a series of multiple choice reading comprehension questions. And if we got a certain number of them correct, we received credit for that card. I believe we had to get 10 credits for any given level before we could move on to the next level.

The set that we worked from was designed for the fourth grade curriculum. But seeing how I was reading at a much higher level and the fact that I read very quickly, I was able to go through the SRAs at a much faster pace than my contemporaries. In fact, I progressed so rapidly through the SRAs that I completed the whole box before the New Year. Ms. Bennett was very impressed but she did not seem surprised. That had never happened previously with any of her students. In fact, I was the first student who had finished the entire program at all, not to mention that I did it in half the school year.

To this day, I still remember the way the cards felt in my hand, stiff cardboard with a color code and number at the top. I remember the little scorecard with each of our names on it, which kept track of what we had completed and what we still had left to do. Since I was her first student that had ever completed the SRAs, she ended up giving me a sort of prize for having that honor. I remember her asking me what I liked and what I was interested in. But feeling shy and very self-conscious, I blurted out that I liked baseball cards because I think that happened to be the "in" thing at the time, although I really had very little interest in baseball cards. I never did well in pressure situations back then.

A few weeks later, she presented me with a baseball card collection starter kit, complete with a three-ring binder, plastic sleeved protectors, and some starting baseball cards. Even though it wasn't the "prize" I dreamed of, I was still very appreciative that a teacher did such a thing for me.

As the rest of the class still had to work on the SRAs, since I had finished the 4th grade set, she made arrangements with the 5th grade teacher for me to go down to her classroom during our SRA time to "check out" some cards from the 5th grade level SRA. However, talk about the Lonely Walk. Walking from my 4th grade classroom to the 5th grade classroom was incredibly daunting. Especially for a shy kid like I was. At my elementary school, the 5th and 6th grades were located in a different wing. So not only did I have to go into the classroom of a class of kids older than me, I had to go to a completely different part of the school.

The feeling was that the 5th and 6th graders had their own part of the school where us lowly underclassmen were not welcome. They essentially ruled the perch where us bottom feeders were simply "there." As I walked down the 5th/6th grade hallway, I was incredibly afraid. Upon reaching the classroom, I stood outside the door for a long time before I finally got up enough courage to enter. Should I knock? Should I just go in and act casually?

No matter what I did, as soon as I stepped in the classroom, I felt fifty eyes boring into my body. I knew I did *not* belong there. Of course the teacher was usually in the middle of something and I always felt my presence distracted her from her agenda, so I felt quite unwelcome from her as well. I'd quietly make my way to the back of the classroom, grab a couple SRA cards and leave while everyone stared at me the whole time.

It became such a huge ordeal for me to go through that entire process that I very rarely went to get the 5th grade SRA cards. I ended up making excuses or I just worked on the same cards over and over. Needless to say, I didn't get much done in the 5th grade SRA kit.

Overall, my whole elementary school career went very well, but it was because of teachers like Mrs. Garrett (1st grade), Ms. Bennett (4th grade), and Mr. Humaney (6th grade) that made it memorable.