Lasting Legacy

Annie Smith

I always wanted to be an educator, partly because I had so many wonderful teachers throughout my own school years. I can remember few details about them, but one teacher stands out in my memory. My staff already knows this story, because I tell it to them every year. It’s about the moment when I first felt smart. As far back as early elementary school, I knew who the smart kids were. I didn’t think I was one of them, but one day that changed because of Mrs. Crandall, my teacher.

Mrs. Crandall was my teacher in first and second grade, and one day she gave us a math problem to solve. The unusual thing was that she didn’t care about whether we got the right answer, but only about how we got to our answer. A few of the smart kids explained their supersmart ways of getting to the answer, but none was quite the way Mrs. Crandall was looking for.

Meanwhile I tried to make myself invisible. My answer was completely different from any of the others, so I definitely didn’t want her to call on me. However, after five or six other students, it was my turn, so I unhappily shared my answer. I was surprised to see Mrs. Crandall’s face light up. That was exactly what she was looking for, and for the first time in my life, I felt smart! Throughout my first- and second-grade years, she encouraged my outside-the-box thinking and assured me that I was my own kind of smart.

After she retired, I was fortunate to spend a few afternoons with Mrs. Crandall as she sorted through a room full of her teaching treasures—old basal books, handcrafted bulletin boards, charts, singalongs, and so on—and shared teaching stories with me. I reminded her about the time she made me feel smart, and I told her that I would never forget the gift she gave me.

Mrs. Crandall gifted me with a few of her teaching treasures, and today they mean even more to me, since I learned that she recently passed away. My heart is heavy, but Mrs. Crandall’s legacy will be around for a long time, along with her gift for making me feel smart. I’ll never forgot her encouragement, and now I strive to help each of my students understand that they’re smart too.