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Mr. President: Encouragement provided big boost to self-esteem




Mrs. Hetie Griffey

Mrs. Hetie Griffey

In the spring of 1967, I was a conflicted little boy. My second-grade school year left me confused on every level because of my scholastic underachievement.

As my teacher handed me the final report card, she gave me one last jab. She told me I had been absent so many days she should have failed me, but she liked my mother so she promoted me to third grade. I faked illnesses to miss school all year long because I feared her stern instruction style. She was quick to apply a ruler to the palm of a student’s ,hand or knuckles to help make her point. She was the antithesis of what we experienced in the first grade with Mrs. Chastain’s kind teaching.

On the first day of my third-grade year, my mother parked our four-door green Ford Galaxie 500 on College Street in front of Guthrie School. She applied her lipstick, and we headed inside to find my classroom. After a short discussion with some ladies at the school’s front door, Mother took me by the hand, and we headed down the long main hallway. We were walking in the direction of my first-grade teacher, MRS. CHASTAIN’S room.

My friends and I thought Mrs. Chastain was the most wonderful teacher at Guthrie Elementary. Instead of turning right into her room, we turned left into Mrs. Hettie Griffey’s room. Mrs. Griffey was strict but at the same time, she was an incredible encourager. As our parents lined the walls, the children found their way to a desk. We soon discovered that Mrs. Griffey’s class was much more structured than what we experienced the year before. The first order of business was roll call. Each student stood up when their name was called so Mrs. Griffey could “put a name to a face.”

When she got to me, Mrs. Griffey said in her speaker’s voice, “John Steven Haley.” Nervously, I stood to face her. “John Steven, John Steven, John Steven. John Steven is the name of a President. You will be my President.” From that point on she called me Mr. President. One roll call and I was on the road to recovering some of my self-esteem.

Important lessons were learned in third grade. This was the year we were taught multiplication tables. We also learned cursive writing. Every day Mrs. Griffey said, “Learn your times tables. You will use math in everything you do.” Over and over she painstakingly drilled us. On the bottom of her chalkboard, she had a long cardboard banner with numbers from one to 100. She would send us to the board and call out times tables like six times three. We drew a semicircle above the cardboard form from one to six. Then we counted the numbers from six to twelve and then from twelve to eighteen. We continued this regimen until we had committed them all to memory. Running the length of the top of her chalkboard was an alphabet chart in upper and lowercase cursive handwriting.

Mrs. Griffey sent home a handwriting book at Christmas break with instructions to practice until we had mastered cursive. We would no longer print our letters, lift our pencils, and print another. Now our handwriting would flow artistically from letter to letter. Because I felt safe and secure, I was absent very little, so my self-esteem and academic learning grew by leaps and bounds in the third grade. Mrs. Griffey’s classroom was a place where we all felt accepted, nurtured, and challenged.

Mrs. Griffey seemed to show up in my life whenever my confidence needed a boost. After graduating from college, I was unable to get a job teaching school. I remained at Hudson Brothers and worked part-time at Mr. Wilmon Moore’s grocery store. It wasn’t the best of times for me. I had invested a lot of time, money, and effort in my education, and I wasn’t using it. It was depressing.

Mrs. Griffey entered the store one Saturday as I was bagging. “Mr. President, are you ready to run for office?” she asked. I grinned and replied, “No ma’am. I’m not 35 yet.” She smiled and replied, “You had better start campaigning.”

I wondered, then and now, if Mrs. Chastain had talked to Mrs. Griffey about our class’ difficult second-grade year before school started. I ultimately decided that she hadn’t. No, I think Mrs. Griffey was interested in each of us as individuals. She loved what she did and that enthusiasm was showered on each of us. She made each student feel important and empowered. She treated us with tremendous respect, and in return, we learned to respect her and each other. That’s a life lesson I haven’t forgotten.

Steve Haley spent his childhood in Guthrie, KY during the 1960s and 1970s. He loves to recount the stories of his extraordinary ordinary upbringing in a small Southern town with his many friends. If you have any comments or suggestions you can email him at Setsof4Haley@ATT.Net or call/text him at 615.483.2573.

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