Magical Mrs.Campbell

Me and my sixth grade teacher Mrs. Callie Campbell at her last day at my old elementary school.

Growing up through grammar school (or elementary school, whatever people are calling it nowadays), we will always remember certain teachers whom we loved when we were in their classrooms and we continue to love as we get older. We love them so much, we continue to go back to visit in that old classroom again each year a few times, just to say hi!

In the sixth grade, I had a teacher named Mrs.Campbell. I was eleven years old when I had her as a teacher and I remember so much about her class. I remember where I used to sit every day, I remember the topics of the class, and it's funny how when we look back the silly things we remember. For example, I think the entire year I learned about Ancient Egypt. We had a social studied unit where we learned about Ancient Egypt and once that was finished, we had Ancient Egypt in our art history class, and then when THAT was finished we had a unit on Ancient Egypt in Language Arts!

Mrs. Campbell's favorite subject was math, and was a superb math teacher. She always had above the chalk board (now white board) in big bold letters "MATH RULES" for everyone to see. But everyone who knew her best would know that she was an avid reader. Mrs. Campbell LOVED to read! Always has and no genre was off limits. She was able to find the right book for any student. It was a gift to be able to get children to enjoy reading. Her love for reading became contagious to the students of her class.

SO it was the year I began reading one of the greatest fiction novels of our time, Harry Potter. At the time, only the first four books were out. I read them all, re-read them all, and I ventured out to reading other magical books to hide away in and just get caught up in imagination-land. Mrs. Campbell really got us to enter new worlds with reading. But "Harry" was our favorite. We'd plan and scheme and try to figure out, and just be blown away with the brilliant writing of J.K Rowling. She of course was also convinced she would have made a wonderful Professor McGonagall, but Dame Maggie Smith did very well. That year for Halloween, I dressed up as Harry Potter and we had a few other characters, and of course Mrs. Campbell was Professor McGonagall.

But one of the greatest memories I will have with Mrs. Campbell was at Christmas time. Of course there were her world famous lollipops she would make, but the year I was in her class was the first year my school did a school sing-a-long of Christmas carols. HOWEVER, our favorite song White Christmas was NOT on the list of songs to sing and we were insulted. So Mrs. Campbell, another teacher named Mrs. Martin, and myself sang at the top of our lungs in the auditorium White Christmas so everyone could hear! Well, on my own account, EVERY year since then, I would come back on the last day before Christmas vacation and sing White Christmas with Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Martin. We did that for 10 years straight!

Mrs. Campbell retired from teaching, and she will be spending a lot of time enjoying her grandchildren. I want to personally thank Mrs. Campbell for being the wonderful teacher she was, for giving me my love to read, for all the Harry Potter craze in my life, and we will still sing White Christmas but in a newer traditional way! Happy retirement and God Bless!

Yours in service,
MASTER TRENTO