SSST

Ever have a teacher who was so good you remember lectures 40 years later?  I did.  Her name was Miss Rand and she was my 7th grade American History teacher.  She had a reputation of being no nonsense and tough, but you will learn a LOT.  I was scared the first day of class as her reputation preceded her.

My fear quickly dissipated as the key to being successful in her class was to pay attention and study.  No mystery there.  She also had a way of delivering lectures that somehow got burned into your memory.  She also had a way of pointing out how complex history really was and not something you can brand into one bumper sticker slogan.

Example:  Everybody thinks the American Civil War was was about slavery. 

Enter SSST.  Slavery was not the main reason for the war.  The reasons were sectionalism, states' rights, slavery, and tariffs.  Nobody ever talks about the other three reasons - only slavery.  To me, that's a real tragedy.  We are only recounting history as we want to remember it, and not how it actually was.  We never look at the entire picture at anything anymore.  We only want to pick and choose the issues with how we create our own spin on revisionist history.

To this day I can still see Miss Rand writing SSST in huge letters across the chalk board.  I can still see her spin to face the class after she wrote SSST on the board and said to us with a smirky grin, "You think the American Civil War was all about slavery?"

She then went into a detailed lecture about the other reasons. 

For what it's worth, I aced the class and thought I was going to fail.  I've often thought about Miss Rand and where she might be today.  I have no idea where she is or if she's still with the living.  I've often thought about writing her a letter about the impact she had on my knowledge of American History.  I'm sure she would not remember me at all, but the impact was there.