Poetry Monday :: Our Favourite Teacher - Updated

  Diane of On the Border and Jenny of Procrastinating Donkey are taking turns hosting Poetry Monday, supplying us with a theme and crafty poems, they are open for suggestions.
  Mimi of Messymimi's Meanderings also writes a poem for us to enjoy.
  This Monday Diane has given us Our Favourite Teacher. 

  I had a favourite teacher, she deserves an epos - a heroic poem. But my muse has up and left me - I hope to catch her later.

  And THANKS to all of your encouraging and kind comments, my muse returned. It's once again free form verse. As my favourite teacher did not fit into any boxes.

  Once she wrote in my end of term notes that she very well could not reprimand me for making what was demanded from the class and not a bit more.
  She made a class for the ones with reading and attention problems long before it was a thing to do - and had me "hired" to help. Not only to ease her job, I can see now in hindsigth, but to teach me, the - to all outer eyes - privileged, intelligent, haughty girl, that the world was not just fun and play.

-- -- -- 

She was kind, to the ones needing help, as the special needs class,
  which she made on her own.
She was furious, when a classmate was not allowed to go on a trip.
  went home to her parents and spewed out letters so big!
She was poor, served us homemade buns with margarine for a treat
  which I could not eat.
She was mad, when children had not enough to eat
  or showed up in slippers at school.
She had at least one boy sent off to an orphanage when the parents clearly
   were unable to cope.
She was sarcastic, but only when she knew you could take it,
  and you were alone.
She was gentle, with animals and the very small,
  and wasn't we all?
She was smart, she spoke Danish, and Flemish and French
  and a half dozen more.
She was generous, spent days with making up and stage things
  for the annual play.
She was sad, deep inside and we never repaid
  what we got.
She was lonely, and I sorely regret that I never got to tell her
  how much she meant to us.

 -- -- --

Another  memory: She had us all knitting chain mail - no not the real stuff, but string on very big needles - and she was reading a good book aloud to us while we knit; five rows each, three sets of needles to a class, and all had to knit, smart and stupid, boys and girls, clumsy and adept alike. We all learned how to knit.