Of Shoes and Shoose and Unforgettable Teachers

“What is the spelling of ‘choose’?”, shrieked Miss Sally. A class of bewildered 12-13 year olds muttered, “C-H-O-O-S-E”.  “Soooo”, she drawled and looked around triumphantly, “What should be the spelling of ‘shoes’? S-H-O-O-S-E, no?” About 40 pimply, pigtailed, young, girls looked at each other wondering if Miss Sally was pulling their leg. Nothing in the three months of their acquaintance had even suggested that she was capable of anything that even remotely resembled humour.

We looked at the exam paper in our hands. All of us, according to our English Teacher had got the spelling of ‘shoes’ wrong, and to that effect she had, ominously circled with red ink each and every offending ‘shoes’.  It was while answering a question about O’Henry’s short story “The Cop and the Anthem”, that the offender had crept into our answers. As those who are familiar with the work will know the story is about  a hobo named Soapy, who tries to get himself arrested and thrown into prison, to escape the winter cold. Now at one point in the story Soapy tries to enter a restaurant but the eagle eyed waiter notices his “frayed trousers and decadent shoes” and chucks him out of the restaurant. It was this phrase that had been the undoing of us all, as Miss. Sally, for whatever godforsaken reason had decided that ‘shoes’ were to be spelt as ‘shoose’.

Miss. Sally had  other little idiosyncrasies too. For instance, she insisted that Soapy  be pronounced as “Sophie”. “Have you ever heard a name as Soapy?”, she challenged our protests. “It must be Sophie, it is written as Soapy for some fashion or style or something”, she informed us as poor O’Henry whirred around in his grave. Any word she did not know the meaning of (and there were many) was met by a “Look in the dictionary and tell me tomorrow”. The ‘shoose’ incident  ended in the whole class marching down to the Headmistress’s office, papers in hand, demanding action. Something like this had never happened in the history of our school and we were immediately branded as a class of troublemakers! Miss. Sally continued to teach us for the rest of that year, albeit with a more hostile demeanor.  When school reopened the next year we found that she was still there in our school, though she’d been shunted down to teach 2nd standard students her unique take on spellings and phonetics!

There was this other wonderful History teacher of ours who never taught. Yup! She’d march into class, tell one of the students to pick up the History text book and read. At intermittent intervals when she managed to tear herself away from the strenuous task of adjusting and readjusting her saree pleats, she’d intone “Underline”. That was it! An entire academic year went by in this fashion. But we kids had no complaints, because as stingy as she was when it came to dispersing her wisdom, she was very very liberal with marks.  After a little bit of begging I once even received 4 marks for a 3 mark question!  We knew she wouldn’t stoop so low as to actually read our answers, she just looked at the length of the answer and I think marks were dispersed according to the no of pages.  Thus even the student with the neatest, teeniest handwriting would huge, scrawling, looping handwriting to score marks in History.  I strongly suspect that my creative writing skills were honed by preparing mile long answers for her. So I do have to thank her for that.

Students can be quite mean to teachers too. When we were in the 10th standard, a young chemistry teacher came to our class one day. It was clear that she’d had zero experience, that fact being made all the more obvious by her quavering, almost whispery voice as she taught us and her fingers shivering as she wrote on the blackboard. And what did we do, juvenile horrors that we were. We knew that we’d found a prey weaker than us. The first pencil box that fell with a loud clatter could have been an accident. But then poor teacher literally jumped out of her skin with such comic effect that it inspired a barrage, no a Mexican wave of falling boxes. Each time she paused, horrified like a deer caught in headlights.  We were mean, mean girls that day, I have to admit.  I don’t know what became of the teacher, but she was out of there in about a week, poor soul.

Why the sudden flashback? It so happens that I am helping my daughter who my  is enthusiastically  making a poster for Teachers Day (celebrated on the 5th of September, in honour of  Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan).


These were some of  of my unforgettable teachers, albeit for all the wrong reasons. There were others, of course who did their job with dignity and devotion, and some genuinely inspirational ones. These teachers not only taught us the subjects that they were supposed to teach, but gave us life lessons. They were the ones who ensured that we took home with us something other than projects and homework.  They played an important role in making me the person I am today. 

Img courtesy magicpencil.co.uk

After each class in school the rule was we had to get up and say “Thank you, Teacher”. This Teachers Day, I just want to say that once more -

Thank you, Teacher.