In fourth grade I came across my favorite teacher: Ms. Castleberry. The way I would describe her is a passionate strong black woman. I loved how she taught us and the way she encouraged us to do more. We were in fourth grade but she put forth all her effort to teach us all that we needed to know. She is also the no BS kind of teacher (my friend, Julia, wanted me to tone down the language so no cussing in this post). We kept a journal in that class to write down what we learned that day or how our weekend was. Sometimes she made us write in cursive just to challenge our writing. I was in ESL at the time so writing about anything was hard. I once asked a classmate how to spell 'news.' But the journaling forced me to use correct grammar and ask for new words. Her passion for teaching emanated through her enthusiasm every morning and her tireless smile at the end of the day.
She would often hold fun competitions in class and fundraisers for certain charities. The one event imprinted in my mind is the valentines day challenge. There was a jar filled with heart candies and we had to guess how many. It was 25 cents per guess, so I thought why not. I donated my quarter and guessed something like 1100. A week later the results were in. In total there were about 50 guesses. Ms. Feingold, my ESOL teacher, had the results in her hand. She played it off like she couldn't read the results, it was too difficult for her, and we begged her to reveal the winner. Please!!!!! We pleaded with her. And then she said the winner is...Ran!!!! She pointed at me and the whole class looked at me. Some cheered some were straight up shocked and some gave a face. I turned red like I always do. Crap, everyone was looking at me. That feeling from the first day of class came back to me and all I wanted to do was sprint away. I regretted ever taking a guess and paying my quarter. What prize would equate to such humiliation? A CD player. Now a days that sounds like a stupid gift, but at the time the only thing I've ever touched was a cassette tape and I thought that was sophisticated technology. I explained that I didn't have any CDs to Ms. Castleberry, but she encouraged me to keep the prize and share it with my family. So I went to K Mart and bought Nsync's No Strings Attached album which was extremely popular back then. Don't judge.
Another memory I have of her was when I had a severe nose bleed right before school ended for the day. I had blood dripping down my shirt. Ms. Castleberry held paper to my nose and escorted me through the hallways. She was freaked out by the blood but kept her hand on the paper. I had lost so much blood I felt dizzy so when I got to the nurse they gave me stuff to eat. Ms. Castleberry was pretty disgusted but never second guessed helping me out. To me she not only was an excellent teacher but she also cared dearly for all her students. Maybe I'm biased cause I won the cd player, but whatever. I miss her and my class. She is actually still at McCall Elementary along with my ESOL teacher Ms. Feingold. I'm glad they have job security; I heard a year ago that teachers were being laid off. Ms. Castleberry is actually now Ms. Pigford. I should pay her a visit sometime. Hopefully, she'll be proud.
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