Post #4370185

Teachers ... Three teachers have left a lasting impression on me. I am talking about school teachers. Yes, I did have other teachers as well, but today I'd like to talk about school teachers. Part 1: Şebnem Palandöken (she/her) She was my teacher in 3rd grade, primary school in a dirt-poor village somewhere in Central Anatolia (for those who are interested: Akpınar Köyü, Ortaköy, Aksaray). This was back in ... well, so long ago that we didn't even have electricity in our village. For whatever reason our class was really small, we were only 18 pupils. Some background: in primary school in those days, each class/grade hat only one teacher and that teacher taught everything. Primary schools in Turkey had (have?) five grades. The other four classes were way larger than ours, maybe 25-30 pupils each. Anyway, this teacher came to our village one day and became our 3rd-grade teacher - in the year I came to the 3rd grade. She was very young, I think we were her first class after her studies. She not only was very young, but she was also very beautiful (yes, yes, I did have a crush on her for a while). But that wasn't why she left a strong impression on me, no, it was something else. One day she said: "We need a library here!" - Wait, what?? What is a "library"? Never heard of it before. You see, until then, the other teachers had just taught us what they had to - i.e., what was in the study-plan/schedule. They gave us the books that the Ministry of Education gave them, they taught us to read, write, some math, some geography, etc - but all of it was based on what the Ministry had required them to do. Nothing else. But this young, idealistic woman wanted us, our class, to have a library: a closet with books in it so anyone of us could borrow a book, take it home and read it at home. For me, that was unheard of. Taking a book home, a book that wasn't a school-book? How? This is possible? Reading a book at home? Reading at home??? WT-??? Yeah, she decided that our class needed a library. She then got a rack from somewhere (I really don't remember where that rack came from) and then she said: "Look, you must have a book at home, no? Here is your homework: go home, find a book at home or buy a book, and bring it to school and we'll put it in our library. Then, whenever you want to read a book, you can borrow one, read it, and return it." I mean, we were all peasants, we didn't have books, we barely had money for anything other than food. So what to do? I remember having had a lot of discussions with my classmates on our way home, but we decided that, maybe, it is a good idea and we should try to convince our parents to get one book each and bring it to school. But my problem was more complicated: I was living with my aunt who didn't have any money at all and the little she earned sometimes was because she sold some produce from our garden on the market in town and we needed that to buy food that we couldn't grow ourselves. So, there was no money to buy a book. My aunt and my cousin, though, didn't want to give up and they searched everywhere. I don't know where they got it from, but a few days later they gave me a small book, maybe 30 pages or so: "The Little Thumbling". I took it to school, and together with all the other 17 pupils, each brining one book, we created our "library". And then I borrowed one. It was called "Uçan Daire", which means "Flying House" (probably a very bad translation of "Flying Saucer"), and it was about a spaceship that landed in the backyard somewhere. A group of children found it, and before the aliens could realize the children were on board and traveling through space. After the aliens discovered the stowaways, they allowed the children to travel with them through the universe before bringing them back. I think one of the children stayed on board and if I am not mistaken, the spaceship would come back every now and then so that the children (siblings?) could meet each other. It was an amazing story - it kindled the fire in me for exploration, for space, for science, for fantasy, for fiction, for ... love! Because, you see, those aliens weren't bad or dangerous. This was the first time in my whole life I had read about alien life. I had never ever considered something like alien life somewhere out in space; in fact, I had never thought about space at all before - stars, galaxies, ... Then I borrowed a second book from our "library": Robin Hood! OMFG!!! This was so beautiful, so wonderful. This guy and his merry men - robbing the rich and giving to the poor. This was a revelation. This was ... magical! Until then, I had always accepted that "Natural Order" that the rich are rich and the poor are poor. I had never thought that this was not a "Natural Order", that things could be different, that the rich actually mostly got rich on the backs of all the others... Yeah, and that's where my story began - I think... Beloved Ms Palandöken: wherever you are, you are loved, and you will always be loved - forever. Thank you for opening my eyes to all those amazing things. #TeachersAreHeroes #Teacher