Truths Mrs. Haren Taught Me

The most effective teacher I ever had locked me out of her room about six times in one semester. Granted, she locked the doors promptly after the tardy bell each time, and I had about four fellow tardy students waiting with me, but the humiliation rose each time I had to wait outside the locked classroom. Mrs. Judith Haren taught eleventh grade Honors English (American Lit) with passion, creativity, and a dry sense of humor that most sensitive students misunderstood. She never lied to the class about a novel, play, or poem, and cared for her students’ well beings in a maternal way. She also introduced me to what became my favorite novel, and I still maintain a good relationship with her to this day. An effective teacher must be compassionate, straightforward, knowledgeable, honest, kind, and someone who does not rescind rules.

An effective teacher has to care about the material she teaches. A successful education includes more than the concepts and standards; a teacher must captivate the students’ attention and make them care about what they learn. Mrs. Haren usually began a new unit by telling us an anecdote about a personal experience with some novel or play. She always managed to make whatever esoteric piece of literature upon which we were about to embark seem way too interesting for high school. She bluntly introduced “The Catcher in the Rye”: “It’s about a snobby kid who’s too much of a smart aleck for his own good,” she said, “and I only hope none of you are like him.” By the end of the novel, she made us take a favorite childhood story (mine was “Harold and the Purple Crayon”) and write it in the way that JD Salinger might have – she allowed us to be creative, and rejected our original pieces which used vulgarity to the point of annoyances. She told us to push our limits as far as writing went, but said that “even a New Yorker” can hear too much swearing.

Mrs. Haren used constructive criticism that made us think. She wanted us to succeed, so she pushed us to out limits as often as needed. Her biggest obstacle seemed to be convincing the less confident students to try their best. She had the most empathetic of writers, my two best friends included, excited to read “A Raisin in the Sun,” “The Great Gatsby,” and “Huckleberry Finn” by making the literature theatrical. And for those of us who already enjoyed reading or writing, she showed us by example how we could improve; she kept us after class if we needed an explanation about why a paper received a “C” instead of a “B+”. She never humiliated, belittled, or disregarded any of her students.

Mrs. Haren cared about her students, regardless of whether or not they cared about her class. Junior year places pressures that feel insurmountable to the average 16-year-old: applying to colleges, finding jobs, learning how to drive, dating, and balancing it all. Mrs. Haren asked me to stay into my lunch hour one day after I tested poorly on a quiz I should have easily aced. She asked how I was performing in my other classes, if I had chosen a college to attend, and if I had any other issues to share. Her mother-and-teacher instinct had evaluated that one of her best students failed a quiz not because of inadequacy; she surmised that I was having a difficult time in areas of my life outside of school (I was). She listened to me and offered her advice here and there; and when all was said and done she told me that I basically had to do the best I could without getting overwhelmed. “Junior year is tough,” she said, “but cryin’ over it ain’t gonna solve anything.”

The tangible truths that Mrs. Haren taught me were pretty simple: prepositions do not belong at the ends of sentences; Beneatha Younger from “A Raisin in the Sun” was an admirable character to be, even if she hadn’t found herself yet; and Billy Pilgrim from “Slaughterhouse-Five” is both insane and genius. But the truths that I learned from her that escape words were much more complex. She taught me that I must feel compassion for everyone around me, that honesty in writing is the best policy, and that we have to stick to what we say. The most important part of that class (besides gaining a second motherly figure) was the reaffirmation that I wanted to teach – to make a difference on a child so that he or she can enjoy learning and commit to lifelong learning just as I have. And for that I owe Mrs. Haren nothing but gratitude.