Blogging, Childhood, Humor, Life

Mrs. Pierce

Kari

 

Doris Pierce Obituary - Mansfield, Ohio | Legacy.com
Courtesy/ Legacy.com

Last week, the world lost an amazing person. My high school English teacher, Mrs. Pierce, died on March 19.

I can still hear her raspy voice teaching me how long a paragraph should be. I can see her floating around the room in her signature floral dress, checking everyone’s papers.

In 11th grade, I learned to love writing, to have confidence in my schoolwork, and to believe that my stories are important and meant to be told. Mrs. Pierce taught me all of that.

I was just an ordinary student until the spring of 1987. I was kind and quiet, so most of my teachers—and classmates—didn’t pay much attention to me. Most of my friends were high achievers, members of the National Honor Society, and student council representatives.

I was none of those things.

I hated high school, and the thought of going for another four years broke my heart a little. I didn’t fit in academically with my friends, and I felt invisible most of the time.

Classroom Chair and Desk

During my junior year, I ended up sitting next to a girl in Mrs. Pierce’s class who introduced me to a world very different from the one I was used to. She skipped class, smoked cigarettes, and drank alcohol.

She was exciting to me—completely outside my comfort zone. She also hated school and had no plans to go to college.

She felt intoxicating.

She brought me into her group of mostly male friends that winter of my junior year—boys who smoked cigarettes, drank, and used marijuana.

I sat alone in dark cars while my new friends went into the homes of drug dealers. I stood next to her as she stole a bottle of wine from the grocery store in our small village. I rode in backseats driven by boys who were drunk or high.

I got drunk for the first time on an absurdly small number of orange wine coolers in the back of a Cutlass Supreme, then threw up all over the picnic tables at the nearby highway McDonald’s—where I ended up working a few months later. I had my first real kiss in the back of that same Cutlass Supreme.

I was a completely different person than I had been just weeks before. I was almost startled by how quickly I had changed. For years, I had felt like I was performing in a play, trying to fit in. Now I felt like I finally did—at least with this crowd, who didn’t judge me for anything except how fast I could chug a beer.

junior year me

 

Even though Mrs. Pierce witnessed the mayhem of my junior year, she never confronted me about it. Instead, she helped me find the words to put it on the page. The chaos in my relationships—with friends, with family—showed up in every assignment I turned in.

In her class, I began to understand that writing could be a kind of escape. A place where I could be edgy without drinking a case of wine coolers, smoking a joint, or dressing in all black. I was still trying to figure out who I was and who I wanted to become. Writing felt like a way to stop pretending.

In her classroom, I wasn’t the dumb girl with smart friends.

I wasn’t the shy girl secretly spitting beer back into the bottle—scared of being drunk and just as terrified of being sober.

In the late spring of 1987, as my rebellious phase was beginning to burn itself out, Mrs. Pierce walked up to my desk holding one of my papers.

Kari, I can’t wait to read the book you eventually write.

I can still see her smile as she walked back to the front of the room.

Did my English teacher just say I could become a writer?

Aren’t writers supposed to get good grades?
Aren’t they on student council?
Don’t they win scholarships?

It turns out all a writer really needs is someone who sees the spark and names it.

Everyone deserves a Mrs. Pierce.

 

A piece from Mrs. Pierce's English class. My favorite teacher

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30 thoughts on “Mrs. Pierce”

  3. Lovely. I am glad she inspired you to keep writing! I clicked on this because my daughter's current and my son's former 1st grade teacher is named Mrs. Pierce, and she is a wonderful woman and everything a teacher should be. I wonder how many more there are?

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  4. RIP Mrs. Pierce, and thank you for directing Kari towards words and, in turn, to all of us.

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  5. Shared to Chicago Public Fools. Hope that's okay with you. My readers really love teachers. Everybody has that one perfect teacher who sees us and gets it and says just the right thing. God bless Mrs. Pierce! This made me teary.

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  8. She was write that was well said. I love that I can hear your today voice in your yesterday voice. Well two yesterdays, 2014 and 1987. Your writing always feels like home in a way that a show like the wonder years feels like home. The way that a good book feels like home, or a warm blanket. There’s a softness to it but also a realness that looks right inside of you and let’s you know that you’re not alone.

    You are a good story teller, my friend. I’m grateful to be amongst women like Mrs. Pierce as one of your readers.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. This is a great tribute to the positive power of a good teacher. Subtle, but effective. I’m glad Mrs. Pierce was there for you to nudge you in the write [pun intended] direction.

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    1. Noooo. I need to. THAT should be what I am doing in quarantine but sadly, I am not.
      Honestly, if I could nail down what I want my book to be about, I would work on it night and day.
      I need to figure that out instead of looking up memes in the middle of the night or pinning desserts I never plan to make LOL.

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      1. Why DO we do that? Pinning the food we won’t make… sheesh. I hear ya. You will find it, your book that is. In the meantime I’m loving the memes. I will miss them once you tuck away into your writer’s den.

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  12. Such a great story. No wonder you like John Hughes movies so much. I had a teacher, Mrs. Kaiser, who pulled me aside sophmore year. She spoke gruff to everyone. Rough around the edges. No sugar coating. It was an all girls’ school- called us all by our last name. Anyway, she told me to run for student council. Said I was a leader. Said kids would follow me. You could have blown me over. I was a quiet kid with occasinal sarcastic remarks whispered under my breath. Leader? Huh? She saw something I didn’t know I had. Game changer. Love me a good teacher. So glad you had a game changer too.

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  13. Mrs. Pierce sounds like a very special teacher and I’m glad you had her. Thank you for sharing this with us. I know it made me look back fondly at some of my special teachers.

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