By JBH Wonders
Mrs. Bennett taught high school English and Latin for many years at the high school that I attended. As I recall, she retired the year that I graduated.
Mrs. Bennett had a stoic and confident personality. She was of slight build and dressed modestly. She had the look and attitude of a stern but patient grandmother with all good intentions toward her students but would not tolerate any nonsense.
Her teaching methods were of “the old school”. That is, do the work, study hard, listen to the teacher, learn, and pass the tests. Not much leniency as I recall for “slackers” but she did seem to sympathize with and grant more patience to us that were less capable.
The worse class that I remember was studying Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”. We read the whole play out loud and it seems like it took a whole semester to read it. This was pure torment for me but Mrs. Bennett got me through it without failing the class.
I mainly wanted to remember Mrs. Bennett because her teaching efforts gave me the writing skills that I have today. No, I am not a professional and I am sure that she could still offer some constructive criticism and corrections on punctuation and diction. Probably spelling too if spell-checkers did not exist. But, because of Mrs. Bennett’s insistence on quality, correctness, preciseness, etc, this at least molded me into someone who can write, be understood, and not bore the audience (hopefully).
I have found Mrs. Bennett’s teachings most valuable in my further education and career as an electronics engineer. I have written many technical papers, patent forms, copyright proposals, legal documents, and numerous other articles. I attribute much of my capabilities in using the written word to one teacher named Mrs. (Mildred) Bennett.
May God bless her wherever she is.
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