Mrs. Abel

Laurence J. Peter

In 1943, I taught in a basement room in Central Elementary School in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. In the other basement room, Mrs. Abel taught first grade. My first impression of Mrs. Abel was of a short, plump, middle-aged woman with gray hair combed up into a large neat bun on top of her head. She wore black walking shoes and was dressed, as always, in a navy-blue skirt and white blouse. Her most impressive characteristics were her manner and speech. She had an aura of complete calm and she looked directly at whomever she spoke to. I had been warned by the principal that the other teachers found her impossible to get along with but that she was a wonderful teacher and the children and their parents loved and admired her. Later, he told me of a problem he had: All the parents of first-graders wanted their children to be in Mrs. Abel's class because she was known throughout the district as the best teacher of beginning reading and writing.

It was not long before I understood why she did not get along with the school staff. She attended only the first staff meeting of the school year and did not go to in-service meetings or school social functions. She preferred to eat her lunch in her classroom with her pupils rather than in the staff lunchroom. She told me she was the best first-grade teacher in the district and the other teachers didn't know what they were doing. When they sought her help or advice, she replied, "I have developed techniques that work for me. Why don't you develop techniques that work for you?" Asked how her pupils all learned to read in the first few weeks of school, when other teachers took all year to achieve the same results, she answered, "Because my techniques are superior to theirs."

When the principal realized that my interest in Mrs. Abel was motivated not by idle curiosity about her idiosyncratic behavior, but by my admiration for her ability, he shared some background information with me. She had graduated from the local high school forty-four years earlier and had attended the Provincial Normal School for one year of teacher training. She returned home to Chilliwack and became a first-grade teacher. Except for three years—during which she was married, had a daughter, and became a widow—she had remained a first-grade teacher. In spite of the promptings of the superintendent and others, she steadfastly refused to upgrade her qualifications or to take in-service courses. When pressed, she said, "Do they know any more than I about teaching?" When urged to get a degree so she would be eligible for promotion, she replied, "I don't want a promotion. I don't want to be an administrator. I like working with children, not adults."

I can only speculate on why Mrs. Abel invited me into her classroom and shared her ideas with me, but my first visit convinced me I was in the presence of genius. Although my observations, over a two-year period, were merely glimpses of a brilliantly conceived and effectively implemented teaching program, I offer here some of my perceptions along with Mrs. Abel's explanations of her methods.

The First Day. In the 1940's there were no kindergarten or preschool programs in this rural area, so Mrs. Abel began by introducing her pupils to school routines. After the children were settled and eager for their first lesson, she hung a chart at the front of the room picturing three red apples. She said, "We are going to learn a rhyme about these apples." She chanted slowly: "How many apples do you see? You can count them, one, two, three." She then had the class recite the poem in unison, following the beat she marked with her hand. When she was certain that all the children were participating, she turned over the picture, revealing:

(a picture)

She pointed to the words and beat time as before while the children chanted the words. As the final activity of the day, she passed out mimeograph copies of the rhyme and the children recited it as they pointed to the words. It was a happy group of children who left school that first day, and I expect that families throughout the district were surprised when their one-day scholars pointed to the words and "read" the apple poem.

Mrs. Abel explained: "I start with words and objects with which the children are familiar. Children accomplish the most complex learning achievement of their lives—to speak their native tongue—without formal instruction. The sound of the word apple is a symbol that in no way resembles an apple. Neither does the visual representation of the word: APPLE. If the child can speak the word, reading the word should present no problems. Therefore I teach the children to say the words, and then show them the words."

I was in no position to question her theory, but I was certainly impressed with the results she achieved. Systematically she progressed to longer rhymes and then used the words from them in other contexts. The children read from the first day and progressed rapidly. Their joy of accomplishment was obvious. When they used the prescribed readers, they completed them in less than half the usual time and were able to engage in substantial supplemental reading.

In every detail of teaching, Mrs. Abel seemed to have a system that worked. Her program was developmentally sequenced to assure that every child acquired each component skill required for reading, writing, and elementary arithmetic. Her ability to observe each child, so that no essential accomplishment was missed, was phenomenal. In answer to my questions, she gave precise and

lucid explanations:

"There is an old saying, 'The eye of the farmer fattens the flock.' I can believe that. Much of my success is because I detect when any child is having difficulty. That's why no child in my class gets left behind. Once a child is left behind, the problems of cumulative error can result in development of a learning disability. The eye of the teacher strengthens the child's learning."

She told me that years ago the superintendent had encouraged her to take courses in psychology. She said, "When I asked why, he told me it might help me to understand the children better. I told him that as a teacher I was more concerned that the children understand me."

For a number of years she had resolutely declined invitations to demonstrate her methods for other teachers, but in her last year before retirement she weakened. She and I shared a storeroom. A few days before the teachers' convention I discovered that she had moved some teaching material out of storage and had replaced it with material she used in the classroom. When I asked her why, she said, "I'm storing the things that work best for me and showing them the stuff that I no longer use. It's taken me forty years to develop my technique and they're not getting it for nothing."

Educational authorities would give Mrs. Abel very low marks for attitude, cooperation with co-workers, in-service education, professional advancement, use of new audiovisual materials, and application of approved teaching methods. I wish that she had shared her teaching techniques more freely, that she had been more open to new ideas, and that she had improved her own education background. The fact remains, in spite of her idiosyncrasies and lack of "professionalism," she was one of that select group of super teachers. Her students had great enthusiasm for school and read better and learned more than any other first-graders I have encountered.

Probably the key to Mrs. Abel's success was her sensitivity to feedback. She was acutely aware of her students' responses to her instruction. The children's learning told her which of her methods was effective. Her experience showed her which things to reject and which to retain for future lessons. Her sensitivity to her own effectiveness shaped her teaching performance. Each teaching experience was a learning experience for her, so that she grew in competence throughout her whole career.

From Outlooks and Insights, ed. Paul Eschhotz & Alfred Rosa, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1987.