In seventh grade I had the meanest English teacher ever. She made us work way too hard. She pushed us constantly and made us do too much homework. For example, one day she made us write out the meaning to a thousand word prefixes. Our next assignment was to write out the meanings to a thousand suffixes. Ok, maybe it was only a hundred each, but it sure seemed like a thousand to a seventh grader. I mean, the nerve of that woman. How unreasonable. What in the world was she thinking?

And we hated it. We moaned, complained, grumbled. Nothing we did or said would make her lessen her unreasonable demands.

We still thought she was awful when we reached high school even though many of us in that class scored very high on the ACT test. We still talked about her when we hit college – even though many of us in that class did very well in college.

Fast forward a few more years and I found myself sitting in a law school class. As I sat there, I wondered why I knew the meaning of many words and understood what I was reading when some of the smart, college educated people I was sitting beside were struggling. And then it hit me.

It was because of the meanest teacher ever!

Thank you Mrs. Sanders, wherever you are.