After looking at some photos on here of some of our teachers, I came across Ms. Feather's photo and some memories popped up in my mind.  Now, at that time, Ms. Feather had been pulled out of retirement to fill in the need for a language teacher   Now, as a teenager, I will admit to being less than self-assured, not confident in my abilities and certainly shy on the social skills.  In short, I had little self-confidence and was almopst always academiclly challenged by almost anything.  The reason goes back to my 2nd/3rd Grades.    What most of you do not know (and why would you?) was that I missed over six months of class time in an academic (9 months) school year.  Think schools are bad now?   I was "passed" to the next grade.  (all this was in El Paso, Texas).  While my Father was stationed in Maine, I was enrolled in a Catholic School to help bring me up to speed.  While the school stated I was not up to speed, they "passed" me.  Not sure how it all worked out, but the following year I repeated 4th Grade in a public school.  I got a great teacher!  Good things (like bad) do not last.  Dad was tranferred. About a year or two later, my eyesight started to degrade.  I was once again failing behind.  Glasses (eye) corrected my vision but I was now academically behind once again and struggling to maintain or improve my grades.. 

Ms. Feather, who's brother was in the French Underground as many of you may recall, was aged at the time she was teaching this class, had some (appeared to have) vision problems, some students thought hearing problems, and some mobility issues.  In some cases, I think some students were making fun of her in her efforts one effort was playing a radio softly under one of the students seats.     

As it was, I was having a tough time in this class and stressing over my grades. I will not go into any specifics, but Ms. Feather showed me that I had to trust myself, and that by doing that I was far better off.  She knew of the antics of others in the class room. She put the proof in front of my face that I should trust and have faith in myself!  

After that I did put more faith in myself!  Ms. Feather, while appearing to be feeble and way out of sorts, was actually a very attentive (more so than I ever thought) and capable teacher for those who would pay attention, listen and learn.  I have had better (more dynamic) teachers, but Ms. Feather, for all her faults, was by far one of the more perceptive teachers I have come across.

This little lesson took hold, and years later in a place of higher education (couldn't believe I had made it that far!), a defeatist Navy Officer (we had this Warrant, a Navy Commander, three Navy Chiefs and myself) in my group complained that we would never get an A in the class we were in after we had made a B+ on a paper.  His complaint was that we were handed the A+ paper (after being graded by the instructor).   I looked the guy in the eyes, and stated that the instructor had just ensured that we, with some effort, would write the next A+! (I guess in this case, that made me the leader of the group?) The other Navy officer looked at me and said "I like the way you think."  The document was analyzed, we got input from all the students in the group and the second Navy Officer and I poured over putting our response together He an I probably had the most time and effort invested in getting our grade.  It took time and effort - but we wrote the next and only A+ given to any group in the class.