In high school I had a particularly vicious (and wonderfully fun) English teacher named Ms. Yentz. She terrorized us and challenged us, and mostly we loved her right back in the same language. I don’t mean “love” sarcastically–once you wrap your head around “vicious”, “terrorize”, “challenge” and “love” in the same person, you understand Ms. Yentz. Of course some folks all the time and all the folks some of the time wanted to rip her spine out in one swift motion, but for the most part she made school a lot of fun.
During my freshman year (when most of us still feared her and hadn’t realized that the best response to her was to bristle back when she got thorny) I entered the “other” section of honors English (she taught two sections) to get her to sign a field-trip permission slip. Unfortunately, she had just discovered my crush on a girl in that section. (During this period of time I always had a crush on someone. Isn’t that how that time of life works?). Should I die fifty years from now half-senile being spoon-fed pudding, I will never forget what she said to me:
“Ahh, Mr. Wiens. I learned something about you today.”
(this in front of the whole class)
“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp.”
“Or what’s a heaven for?”
I was mortified. To this day I have no idea who got the joke and who didn’t, but it was, after all, the honors section, so I had to assume the worst.
To this day I’ve never read the full poem. I probably should. Though I’d never remember it like the snippet I learned that day.
I love Ms. Yentz so much. Probably my favorite teacher in high school, and one of the top-5 I’ve ever had.
She won a place in my heart with this story: Remember when we had to diagram sentences out of Yentz’s Bible, and then she’d randomly call on us to copy the diagrams onto the blackboard and generally berate us if we made mistakes? Well, as was my wont at the time, I never did my homework, and she knew it, so every day we had diagramming work due for about a month she called on me, and every time I brought my notebook to the board (so that I could see the sentence, and I guess to try to pretend that I had done it) and did the diagram on the fly. Mostly I didn’t make mistakes because, well, diagramming sentences is easy :).
Like I said, this went on for about a month, until one day after the bell rang she told me to come to her desk. She asked to see my notebook, and I must have blanched because I knew that the gig was up and she’d see that I hadn’t been doing my homework. Well, she looked it over for a second, then looked at me and very sternly (she didn’t really have an on/off switch for stern, I guess) asked “Have you been taking your blank notebook up to the board and doing those diagrams in your head while you stood there?” I nodded yes, and she sighed and handed me back my notebook and said “Well, hell, I guess you don’t really need the homework then, do you?”
I got all As in her class.
I liked that she realized that homework wasn’t an end in and of itself. It wasn’t until college that I found another teacher who cared as much about students learning and as little about the actual institution and mechanism of school.
Good times…
Left by John B on December 21st, 2006
As I sit my here wondering if the kids and/or teachers return to school tomorrow, I realize that if I were fortunate enough to be still spending the best hours of each day in 21-210, I’d be asleep right now, getting up in about 15 minutes.
Were it not for an unfortunate injury, I’d be thinking of my lesson for the first day after Winter Break…about moderation and the consequences of its absence, “Telson’s Bank had a run upon it in the mail,” and Versailles. I’d also be anticipating my comments to the first poor soul who answered the inevitable question with “England and France” and HIS reaction to what HE’d just said!
The only way I have maintained anything since having to accept almost a year ago that my career had truly ended in January, 2004, was my painfully realized epiphany that length of time was not the important part of my teaching…the “A-ha!” moments, the joy of knowing that I truly have made the world a little richer, and the blessing of having known so many wonderful young people and seen such a great number of them become such thoughtful, creative, productive, caring citizens are the components of my life’s accomplishments, more than I could have ever imagined. No one could ever have as rewarding and gratifying career as have I.
Interestingly, Browning’s poem “Andrea del Sarto” from which the quote “Oh, that a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,/Or what’s a heaven for?” comes was considered by him to be one of his finest monologues and was one he frequently selected when he was asked for a reading. Critics today continue to agree that it is one of his very best. The content is based upon Browning’s study of the 16th-century artist whom Browning “Called the Faultless Painter.” That you remember the quote and I read of your remembrance now is certainly confirmation of the quote’s validity! Just as Shakespeare’s Edmund told us in LEAR, “Ripeness is all!” Yes, “the wheel has come full circle.”
Thank you for letting me know (in a somewhat ‘circular’ fashion!) that, as Matthew Arnold put it, “what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.”
Yentz
Left by Susan Yentz on January 2nd, 2007
I see that evidence of my recent self-diagnosis as “chronologically challenged” has shown through once again. The January to which I referred above belongs in 2005. Injury occurred in May, 2004…I hung in there until the following January!
I stand (Sorry, but I must say “sit.”) corrected!
Yentz
Left by Susan Yentz on January 2nd, 2007
How delightful to find fellow survivors of Ms. Yentz’s powerful and memorable freshman english class. Whenever the subject of influencial teachers comes up, I look back with a fondness and appreciation that can only be fully understood by those who have shared the experience. I can recall quite clearly a few lessons about grammar and the teaching device used to secure those lessons in my memory. “Sally stubbed her toe!” The metal toed heels and the obviously worn patch on the desk gave evidence this lesson had been given before. Transitive verbs require a direct object. I’ll never forget.
Thanks for the memories, friends. Thank you Ms. Yentz.
p.s. I don’t suppose anyone has an updated/recent copy of Y.E.S.S., more commonly known as Yentz’s Bible? 14 years later, mine is not wholly recognizeable and I would treasure a new one.
Left by Kenny A on January 14th, 2007
Hello,
Can you tell me if you are Susan Yentz, daughter of Arlene and Mitchell Yentz?
Regards,
Jon
Left by Jon on March 30th, 2007