National Teacher’s Day

May 6th marks National Teacher’s Day... or as I like to call it, National Educator Day.

Whether it’s a school teacher, music teacher, dance teacher: you name it... we all have one thing in common: we've all had teachers.

I know I'm biased, but I want to give a shout-out to my utmost favourite teacher: my Mom!

She wore both hats: single Mom and teacher, and somehow made it all work. I’m so grateful for that.  She even taught my brother. Without my parents ever telling him to, he called her "Mrs. M" at school... and just "Mom" at home.

But outside of family, one teacher truly changed everything for me.

For me, it was my Grade Seven Teacher. 

After losing my Dad at the age of 10, it was incredibly hard to leave my small, close-knit K–8 elementary school for a senior public school (just grades 7 and 8). At my first school, everyone knew each other. My grade six teacher asked me to run up to the back of the schoolyard (where there was a restaurant) and buy him a burger from J & S Burgers a few times a week. Yes, kids did stuff like this and no one questioned it.

We (us kids) all walked to and from school together. I even used to walk home alone from kindergarten and let myself into the house. Don’t call the Children's Aid Society... my Mom taught at a school in a neighbourhood twenty minutes away, and she always came home to make me lunch a little later. I'd be watching The Brady Bunch.

Leaving that familiar environment for a brand new (and round!) school, where you had to rotate through ten different teachers and use lockers, was overwhelming. Especially right after losing my Dad so tragically... I just wasn’t ready for the change and wanted to stay with people I knew and felt comfortable with.

Back then, "grief" wasn’t a word people talked about much. We especially didn’t know how to support kids through it.

Thankfully, my Mom, who worked in the system (the Scarborough Board of Education, which was a smaller, more personable board at the time), had some connections. I was allowed to take a year off school. When I returned, I bounced around a few different schools to see which one I liked. I took the TTC to get to each of them. The student fare back then was 50 cents.

Eventually, my Mom heard about a teacher ( Mrs. T back then, but JT I call her now) at Maryvale Public School. So, I took the bus by myself that first day... from Midland and Ellesmere to Pharmacy and Ellesmere. And that was the place. That classroom. It was where I finally felt at ease and where the healing began.

That teacher was personable, sympathetic, and so much more.

Fast forward to today... I’m still in touch with her and the friends I met... in grade seven.

In honour of my Grade Seven Teacher, I would like to dedicate these socks to my one-and-only, unforgettable teacher.

One cool fact: she played records in class.