As a seventh grader in 1982, I knew not to judge a book by its cover. But judging it by its spine was another matter entirely. There was a certain thickness (somewhere around ¾ of an inch, I believe) beyond which books were rejected summarily as "too hard." I didn't invent the rule; it was just the way things were - until Mrs. Toebbe arrived.
Janice B. Toebbe was a new teacher at Gulliver Academy in Miami that year, and she was a very nice lady. She had a quick smile, a cookie-baking-Mom type of demeanor, and she talked to us like adults. My friends and I were prepared to like her - until the second week of school when she plunked brand new, "complete and unabridged" copies of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield on each of our desks and announced that we were going to read them. The book, which I still own, clocked in at 734 pages and was 2 ½ inches tall.
In addition to being thoroughly alarmed, I remember feeling sorry for her. Obviously, the poor woman was nuts. Mrs. Toebbe must have missed the class in teacher school where they explained what seventh graders could and could not do. Her dangerous delusions were the buzz of the hallways and cafeterias. There was a tidal wave of protest, but she was immutable. She really expected us to read that monstrosity! She assured us that we would do it together, bit by bit, but that was no comfort whatsoever to a roomful of panicked 12-year-olds.
Mutiny was not an option, so united in our reluctance and suspicion, we embarked on the journey. Every few days, Mrs. Toebbe read the first 5 pages of a new chapter aloud, then sent us home to find out what would happen next. She never hyped up the book or gave us a sales pitch about how interesting it would be. Imagine our surprise when we discovered on our own that, for a dreary-looking volume, it was pretty exciting! Before long, my peers and I were racing ahead, impatient to find out how things would turn out for beleaguered young David.
Mrs. Toebbe did other things that year that shocked our young sensibilities. She gave us 10 big, unfamiliar words every week, which we had to define and write in sentences. There were some whoppers. I remember adjectives like "grandiloquent," "supercilious," "perfidious" and "magnanimous," and nouns including "modicum," "zephyr" and "avarice." She quizzed us on these, giving us the meanings and asking for the words (spelled correctly), or giving us the words and asking for definitions. Sometimes she used students' sentences as clues.
Didn't she know those words were too hard for seventh graders? Of course not. Our Dickens-loving teacher had great expectations for us, and she neither acknowledged nor respected the limitations we had put on ourselves. It turned out that Mrs. Toebbe was right. She knew more about what we could do than we did, and it forced us to reappraise our own abilities.
Didn't she know those words were too hard for seventh graders? Of course not. Our Dickens-loving teacher had great expectations for us, and she neither acknowledged nor respected the limitations we had put on ourselves. It turned out that Mrs. Toebbe was right. She knew more about what we could do than we did, and it forced us to reappraise our own abilities.
Mrs. Toebbe was keen on extra credit and offered bonus points to anyone who could find our vocabulary words in books outside of class. Figuring that long books were most likely to contain long words, my best friend and I bought matching copies of Gone With the Wind and started hunting. We didn't earn as many points as we'd hoped, but we both got caught up in the novel and finished it over the summer. That tome, which I also still own, had 1,024 pages. So much for judging a book by its spine!
Looking back on my education, I can point to many competent teachers who taught me useful things. But Mrs. Toebbe is the only one who sparkles in my recollection. She changed me profoundly and is, without hesitation, the best teacher I ever had. Only now, 20 years later, as I embark on a second career as an educator, can I fully appreciate what she did.
Giving us those copies of David Copperfield was like showing us an enormous mountain and telling us we had to climb it. The task loomed large before us. It was intimidating, but Mrs. Toebbe was not. She ascended the mountain with us, making lively conversation as we put one foot in front of the other, ushering us upward without letting us reflect for too long about how far we still had to go. I credit Mrs. Toebbe with transforming me into a voracious reader with a larger-than-average vocabulary. But her biggest gifts to me were her unshakable faith in my ability to do great things, and the confidence that even the most daunting of tasks can be broken down into manageable steps.
It seems woefully inadequate, given the magnitude of these life lessons, but wherever you are, Mrs. Toebbe: Thank you!
-- Cindy Glover, Florida Atlantic University