A Teacher's Calling

"A teacher is paid in something rarer than money, the small upright shoulders of a child who finally understands."

She walked into her first classroom and never really walked out. For more than four decades she taught, first the small ones learning to hold a pencil, later the older ones learning to hold an idea. Primary school, then secondary school, generations of students who would grow up to call her Madam without ever feeling the word as anything but tender.

She was, by every account, a perfectionist. Exercise books were marked the same evening they were collected. Uniforms were inspected. Posture was corrected. But the discipline arrived hand in hand with patience, and her students learned that being held to a high standard is itself a kind of love.

In 2004 she retired from the Secondary Schools Education Board. The Board lost a teacher. The community kept a mother.