Mrs. Patricia Rush

My favorite teacher of all time was Mrs. Rush. She was an eccentric-looking woman with short, fiery red hair and an interesting flair for fashion. She adored bright colors (especially purple, if my memory serves correctly) and had huge glasses.

The first day I stepped into her fourth class, I was so nervous. We'd just moved to the area midway through the previous school year because my mom wanted to be with my grandma, who was dying of cancer. She passed away not long afterward, leaving me in this land filled with "Cows and flies! That's all there is here!!!"

I remember the teacher's assistant (whose name escapes me) trying to help Mrs. Rush remember a student's name by singing. Finally the TA said, "Melody, remember?" and Mrs. Rush said, "Oh! That's right!" I was impressed to see many cool names in my class: there was another girl who was named Star. Well, actually, it was Estrella, but she just told everyone to call her Star. 

Mrs. Rush had an approach to teaching that kept all the kids interested. She had a giant library in her room, and let kids check out the books anytime she liked. There was a book there with MY name in it: Jennifer Murdley's Toad. It was a great read, and I accidentally stole it that year (I was just as forgetful as Mrs. Rush was, and I'd lost it somewhere in my room, only for it to turn up later).

Mrs. Rush was also careful to ensure that there were plenty of projects to keep us going. There was a science project involving four pieces of bread in the classroom. Two of the pieces were wet with water and placed in separate sandwich bags, and two were kept dry. Two (one wet, one dry) were placed somewhere dark, and two placed somewhere dry. It was a lot of fun looking at the nasty, moldy bread. 

She also kept poems for us to earn extra credit. A particular favorite was a poem about the evils of homework. I have a friend who, to this day, can recite the poem, and we're almost 30 years old now!  For us, it was just fun, but she knew that she was teaching us to be unafraid of public speaking: something that we would need in the future. 

Early in the morning, she would have us do multiplication drills. I HATED doing those because I've always been awful at math. As much as I hated it, though, I realized that the more I did it, the better I was at remembering them. It made life much easier for me when I had more complex math problems to do.

She taught us other languages as well, using that as an opportunity for us to gain extra credit. She wrote 1-10 in Spanish, French, German, and Japanese on the blackboards. The boys particularly enjoyed saying "six" in German, giggling afterward every time. 

I adored Mrs. Rush. She was my favorite teacher even then. I wrote the cheesiest poem ever for her, and she had it published in the Anthology of Poetry by Young Americans. I thought I must be pretty cool to have gotten in there, but when I got the book in the mail, I realized there were far more talented kids than I. Still, Mrs. Rush always believed in me. 

She created something called "The Jumprope Club" after school, and I went there all the time. I gained confidence in the fact that I could jump quickly, and came up with some awesome new jumproping moves, too. (Well, at least, I thought they were new until Mrs. Rush pointed it out in a book she had. Oh well.) We jumped rope to the same band every time: The Beach Boys. She had a major crush on them, and spoke of them the same way a junior high girl would talk about One Direction or Justin Bieber nowadays. 

Even after I left Mrs. Rush's fourth grade class, I visited her at lunch and after school for the Jumprope Team. There was a kid in her fourth grade class (I think he was the same age as my sister) named Anthony Martinez who would glare at me as I went by, so I returned the glare. I never meant anything by it, and I don't think he did either... but not long afterward, he was kidnapped. I felt awful for glaring at him, and even worse when they confirmed his death by finding his body. 

The whole community took Anthony's death hard, but I think it may have been too much for the kindhearted eccentric woman who'd taught me to use my imagination, learn multiplication, speak in front of an audience and devour books. She retired shortly after that, and when I grew up and thought of her wonderful giving spirit again (wanting to thank her for all she'd done in my life), it was too late.

She had already passed away, but the valuable things that she taught me will forever live on. She poured her life into her students, and when that one life was snuffed out, it crushed her. I want to be the kind of woman she was: one who encourages creativity, makes people comfortable in their own skin, and loves with all her heart.