The Saracen's Head
MISS SHEEHAN & THE WIDER WORLD
We all have lasting influences, from early on, but one of my earliest is Miss Sheehan, my fourth-grade teacher at Buckingham, a private school in Cambridge. I remember it being a pretty big class, maybe a couple of dozen, but smaller than Peabody, the public school I’d gone to, first through third. I don’t think we were any better or worse behaved than your average clutter of nine-year-olds, but I’m not quite sure how she managed it. Her manner was congenial and relaxed, and it felt natural and unforced, as if that were the only relationship possible, that we were curious about each other, that none of us had an axe to grind. We weren’t adversaries. I never had the sense of a power dynamic - the threat of punishment, or ridicule, or any of the tools of hopeless discipline. None of us wanted to disappoint her.
It was our home room, and she taught every subject, but what I remember most clearly is that she read aloud to us. We’d read along, in our own copies. The books got more sophisticated as the school year went on. The Saracen’s Head. The Borrowers. At one point, we dramatized The Saracen’s Head, not with a script, but improvising; we all knew the story, and we each slipped into our characters and took off from there.
Of course, there was a lesson plan. I see that, now. At the time, it all felt like improvisation, as though she were inventing it with us, every day a new day. She had a genius for it. And for making you invested, for giving you the power of your own imagination. To this day, I still see the open courtyard of Buckingham, in my mind’s eye, as the setting for hundreds of scenes in literature, from Mary Renault’s historicals, to Shakespeare, to science fiction. She opened the windows. She let in the light. This is, we know, a well-trodden path. Many people tell a similar story, a teacher, a librarian, your mom’s maiden aunt June, somebody who first parted the curtains, and gave you the gift of the world. That moment you inhaled it entire, the sightline of your inner eye, the length and breadth of your invention.
I realize what she communicated was enthusiasm. And, in hindsight, that my experience wasn’t unique. I’m guessing every kid in my class felt the same way. In fact, I’m guessing anybody who went to Buckingham Lower School in the time she taught there would say, Yeah, fourth grade, Miss Sheehan. Nothing like it ever happened to me, before or since. Our many lives, passing through her life every year, each year a different mix; she was the same, steady presence. She’s become part of our origin story, certainly part of mine.
The word I’m looking for is magical. There’s a sense we have, of our own childhood, that it was charmed. Not everybody, no, because the gods are cruel, but if we were protected, perhaps we were under a spell. In my case, Miss Sheehan cast one, and caught me in her wide net.
Beautifully told.
I had a 1st grade teacher at Isabell Buckley School near Sunset Strip. A private school I attended for 3-years before entering public schools. I cannot recall her name but I remember her kindness. I took her photo with my Browny camera, it must have been Camera Day, and entered it in a magazine contest and won. I also remember lining up along the school’s picket fence one year to watch President Eisenhower’s motorcade drive by. My 1st grade teacher was beautiful, a brunette, with a welcoming smile. Some 20 years later, I met another 1st grade teacher much like her. Her name is Alicia. This is my 50th year in her class and she still charms me.
Nice! I was briefly a second grade public school teacher and I read aloud at home to my children for 18 years. We never read The Saracen's Head and I'll have to check it out. I used to have a Substack account with my read aloud log. Yesterday I was moving my 20YO out of her student apartment in old town Quimper and she said, "this is like The Borrowers when they carried all their belongings miles on their backs." Thanks, Miss Sheehan.