Emma and Miss Spencer

By Paula Sline

Nine-year-old Emma Cavanaugh lives with her parents in the upscale community of Glendale. She is a warm, adventurous child whose love for nature sustains her as she attempts to adjust to another year in school. She has a secret that becomes too difficult to keep. Fourth grade will surprise her in ways she could not imagine.

Miss Spencer is a twenty-seven-year-old former Catholic nun who is struggling to adjust to her new life. When her dream of becoming a college professor is dashed, she reluctantly accepts a fourth-grade teaching position in Glendale. In spite of her personal trauma, she uses her skill and core beliefs to challenge and nurture her students. In return, she receives an unexpected gift that gives her hope.

Emma’s and Miss Spencer’s voices tell a compelling story of courage, endurance, and the power of love. The story is inspired by events that took place in 1972.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Dec 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665734745

Paula Sline

Paula Sline was a teacher, principal, college professor and educational consultant with thirty-two years of experience working with young children. She has a master of arts degree in social ethics and a doctorate in educational administration. She is the author of the novel, Unveiled.

Book preview

1

EMMA

T he first day of school always brought with it a mix of anticipation and anxiety. So, naturally, I thought my first day in fourth grade would be like all the others. I got up early, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and dressed in the new outfit my mother and I had chosen at Rebecca’s, a fancy clothing store downtown.

First, I put on the T-shirt I had tie-dyed myself, a beautiful pink sweater with little blue butterflies, and finally my new pants, which were the same color blue as the sky on a clear summer day. My sneakers were white with pink shoelaces to match my outfit. I combed my long brown hair to make sure there were no snarls. Then I went downstairs to see how my mother thought I looked in my new clothes.

She was busy at the stove and didn’t even notice me until I snuck up behind her and hugged her. She turned and gasped. Emma! You look beautiful. All ready for a new adventure?

Oh, Mom, it’s just school.

I know, but you’re a fourth-grader now. I remember walking you to school on your first day of kindergarten.

I saw tears in her eyes, so I just smiled and asked, What’s for breakfast?

My mother was very pretty. Her hair was blonde with a little gray that she said she had earned. She was thin but strong and could ride her bike with me. Mom was there to bandage my knees when I fell, bake my favorite cookies, and read to me. She tucked me in every night. I pretended I was too old, but I really liked it when she kissed me on the forehead and said, Sweet dreams.

My father was great too. He was taller than my mother and had the most beautiful blue eyes. I loved his curly gray hair even though some of it on the very top of his head was gone. He joked and sometimes lifted me up to give me a bear hug. The hard thing was that he traveled a lot on business. He was an engineer in a large company and had meetings in other states and even Europe. Mom and I missed him so much when he was away.

I could tell my parents almost anything without worrying that they would get mad and stop loving me. I say almost because there was no way I was ever going to tell them or anyone about my secret place in the woods. That was between me and the little chipmunk I always met there. He seemed to wait for me to unload my pocketful of Cheerios and then stayed long enough for me to draw him before his cheeks were bulging and he raced away.

This was my private place where I could think and pretend that I was the best scientist or soccer player in the world. No one was there to ask me a hard question, to tell me to read better, or to say I would never be good at anything. To tell you the truth, I was the only one who ever said that because I thought I was the only one who really knew I was dumb.

Summers were perfect because my parents always planned a special vacation for us. I had already been to five countries, two islands, and, of course, Disney World. We stayed in a fancy tent when we went to St. John’s in the Caribbean.

My favorite vacation was when we rented a cottage for two weeks on Cape Cod. I could invite a friend to come for the first week. Then my Aunt Kate, Uncle Ben, and cousins, Julie and Corey, would come for the second. We fished, swam, and took boat rides. At night, we had cookouts and played cards. My parents seemed so relaxed during that time that I wished it could last all year.

I also never wanted summer to end because I didn’t want to have to sit at a desk, pay attention all day, and try to be as smart as my parents. But no matter how hard I wished for summer to last, September always came, and I had to face the fact that the fun was over.

*          *          *

After saying goodbye to my mother, I hopped on my black Raleigh bike and rode the quarter mile to my brand-new school. It was a relief to know that everyone would have to learn their way around. I had never been in a school so big, and that was on one floor with long wings built out in four directions.

During the summer, I had peeked in some of the windows and saw all the polished new floors and the blackboard that had never felt dusty chalk scrape its perfect surface. Brookside had a gym! In my old school, I had physical education in the classroom because the school was so crowded that the gym was used for the kindergarten classes.

In June, my third-grade teacher didn’t know who my new teacher would be. The only information she wrote on my report card, besides saying that my reading needed to improve, was Promoted to Fourth Grade, Room 11, Brookside.

It hadn’t mattered that much then who my fourth-grade teacher would be, but on that first day of school, I couldn’t wait to find out. I wondered if she would be strict, if she’d smile, and if she would remember my name by the end of the day.

I had seen my third-grade teacher’s seating chart with our names, so I guessed my new teacher would have one and our desks would be in rows and already assigned. I hoped I would be seated close to my friends or at least to kids who looked like they could be new friends. I really didn’t want to be near the boys because some of them just wanted to fool around. I didn’t want to get in trouble because I was unable to hear the teacher’s instructions.

When I got to Brookside, I locked my bike in the new bike rack. Fourth-graders were allowed to ride to school because we were older and more experienced than the younger kids. I walked to the playground, anxiously looking for my friends. I was relieved to see Sarah and Abby walking around. We huddled together until the bell rang, the signal to line up. I figured there would be three classes, just like there had been in third grade. Abby and Sarah seemed really excited to be there, so I pretended to be too.

The bell rang, the school doors suddenly opened, and the teachers walked out holding signs with their grade and room number printed in black magic marker. I anxiously looked until I saw three grade-four signs, each carried by a woman. No man teacher again this year, I thought.

One by one, we got in line, waiting for students new to town to find out which room they were in. I quickly counted twenty-six kids in the Room Eleven line and noticed two more boys than girls. Uh-oh, I thought. I knew some of my classmates, but none were my close friends. We waited until the younger kids walked into the school. Then when it was our turn, we followed our new teacher through the doors.

There was no doubt that summer was over. I felt as though my wings had been clipped and that I was sentenced to another year of trying my best to get a good report card.

*          *          *

My first look at Miss Spencer was when she held up the Grade Four, Room 11 sign. She was younger than any teacher I ever had. I guessed she must be in her twenties. I thought that my parents were old enough to be her parents because they were in their fifties, much older than the other kids’ parents. She was very thin and wore a plain blue skirt, a white blouse, and no jewelry except for a watch and small silver earrings. She had short, dark-brown curly hair, green eyes, and a nice smile. I thought she might be kind and would make fourth grade less frightening than I first thought it would be.

The other kids and I placed our sweaters and jackets on the shiny new hooks at the back of the classroom. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I noticed that the desks weren’t in rows but in squares, four desks in each group with seven groups in all. The girls all sat together; so did the boys. Kids I didn’t know stood waiting for empty desks to appear. The new kids sat in a group all by themselves. I felt sorry for them.

When everyone was finally seated, the teacher smiled and then began to speak. My name is Miss Spencer. Welcome to fourth grade. I am excited to have each of you in my class. We are going to have many adventures this year, but first it will be important for us to get to know each other. I promise I will know your names by the end of the day. To help me, I am asking each of you to write your name on this small card. I will place them in this seating chart so I will know who you are and where you are seated. I don’t want to lose anyone on the first day.

We laughed, but I really had to use the bathroom and didn’t have any idea where it was. She looked right at me as if she could read my mind.

Let’s take our first field trip and find the bathrooms just in case any of you would like to use them.

We all jumped out of our chairs and lined up at the door. What a relief! I thought. I didn’t even have to ask permission.

The bathrooms were just up the hall from our class. I knew I would be able to find them again, even without Miss Spencer’s help. On the way, I saw the two other fourth-grade classes and a special class for kids. A few had wheelchairs. I saw one girl standing in front of her teacher with her arms crossed. She looked very angry!

When we were settled back in our room, Miss Spencer asked us to look around the classroom. What do you notice? she asked.

I let the other kids who already had their hands raised answer.

This room is new, but the walls and bulletin boards are all bare, Megan said confidently.

Where’s the alphabet above the blackboard? Stephen asked. All of our other teachers had them.

I held my breath, wondering if Miss Spencer’s smile would disappear, but it didn’t. She just kept calling on kids until everyone had spoken.

Well, she finally said, you certainly are observant.

She then wrote the word observant on the new blackboard before she faced us again and leaned against her desk. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was different than any teacher I had ever had. I felt her looking at me, and then it seemed she glanced at each of us as if we were the only student in her class.

The reason the classroom looks so bare is that, it seems to me, we need to decide together what we would like to put in this room. For the next ten months, this room is yours and mine. Let’s make it an interesting and helpful place so you can enjoy learning as much as possible in fourth grade. I know you are all smart even if you think you aren’t because you’ve had some difficulty learning. I’m sure that together we will find ways to help all of us learn, myself included.

My shoulders dropped down from around my ears. I felt more comfortable than I ever had in school. She told me—us—that we were smart. I knew then that I would work harder than ever so Miss Spencer wouldn’t change her opinion of me.

2

MISS SPENCER

T hough earlier in the week I had had my first staff meeting and the opportunity to meet many of the teachers and support staff, the first day of school still brought a mix of anticipation, resignation, and anxiety. I wanted to excel, to be a college professor. Instead, despite my efforts, I was returning to a job I thought I had left for good.

After leaving the convent, I was accepted into the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Boston University. My parents were able to pay for my tuition with money they had inherited from Sadie, my mother’s second cousin. Unfortunately, my recently-earned master of arts degree in sociology of religion and social ethics had not been the ticket I’d hoped would guarantee me a teaching position at the college level. In the Boston area, hundreds of people with PhDs were looking for teaching jobs, dashing my hopes of even an entry-level position.

I needed to support myself, so in late spring, I applied for a job I was qualified to do: teach young children. I was hired to teach fourth grade at the new Brookside Elementary School in the upscale community of Glendale.

On the drive that morning, I reflected on the fact that I was still paying the price for a choice I made when I was seventeen. I grew up in the wealthy community of Ridgefield. The message given to me and all college-bound students by our teachers was that a college education at a top-rate school was mandatory if we were going to succeed in life.

I needed no reminding because in 1929 when my father was sixteen, he’d passed up an opportunity to attend MIT. Instead he got a job as a clerk at the Railway Express in Boston’s North Station. That choice had rendered him impotent to compete for any career he would have wanted. Later, with a wife and three children, he couldn’t afford to go to college and was afraid to take the risk of finding work more suited to him. Through the years, I saw how his tedious job wore him down and sank him into a depression that affected all of us.

I made it my mission never to be trapped like my father. I was determined to go to college, no matter what price I had to pay. My working-class parents couldn’t afford to send me to any college. Neither did they mention the possibility of my taking out a loan or applying for assistance.

I decided I had two options, the army or the convent. The convent seemed like a good choice because I was very religious and longed for a close relationship with God and the Blessed Virgin Mary. I thought I would live in a caring community of warm, holy women and serve others in God’s name.

I chose the Sisters of St. John, an order that educated its nuns before placing them in hospitals, colleges, schools, and foreign countries to serve the sick poor. I thought it was a perfect solution. I hoped I would be educated to become a psychologist or college professor.

However, shortly after receiving the habit, at the end of my second year in the novitiate and my sophomore year at St. Mary Magdalen College, I was summoned to the Province’s Superior’s office. Sister Winifred was a robust, imposing woman more disposed to power than kindness.

Kneel and kiss the floor, Sister Sebastian, she bellowed. I obeyed. She stared at me and spoke. God has called you to be an elementary school teacher. This will be your major area of study for the next two years.

Thank you, Sister, I responded as Sister Mary Joseph, the nun in charge of all study sisters, had instructed us to do.

I kissed the floor, rose, and walked out of her office. I shook on the way back to my room. The battered remnants of my humanity and independence cried out, You have failed to reach the goal set for you at Ridgefield High School, but even more, the one you set for yourself.

I was taught that my reaction was more evidence of my selfishness and failure to be holy. I thought God was punishing me or, at best, testing my humility. In the two years I had already spent in the convent, I learned that holding on to any goals or wishes was more proof of my failure as a flawed human being. I believed that my suffering was pleasing to God and His way of stripping me of all that was weak and sinful. My superiors had instructed me to sublimate my human needs and raise all to the supernatural level.

*          *          *

After completing my undergraduate degree, I was missioned to Our Lady of Hope in Washington, DC, and assigned to teach fourth grade. Sister Louise, the older nun who had the other fourth-grade class, suffered from a severe nervous disorder. Each afternoon she would come to my classroom door crying because she couldn’t decide what vegetable to serve with our dinner that evening. She told me to cover her class while she walked to the convent to start supper. It was hard enough to have to rescue her each day, but to see her so paralyzed by such a small decision was unsettling and reinforced my already-growing fear that I would become like her if I remained in the convent.

*          *          *

I parked my used, mint-green VW in the rear parking lot adjacent to the playground and nearest the doors to my classroom, Room 11. I arrived early so I could have coffee with my two colleagues, Janet Brennan and Jennifer Waters. Both were veteran teachers with many more than my three years of teaching experience.

In our planning earlier in the week, Janet, Jennifer, and I chose our classrooms and agreed to share our teaching responsibilities. Janet would teach science to all three classes, Jennifer would have math, and I would have social studies. It would reduce planning and enable each of us to teach to our preference.

When the bell rang, we emptied our cups, picked up our class lists and room signs, and walked down the hall and through the doors to meet the students who were anxiously awaiting our arrival. When they spotted us, children of all ages and sizes scattered to get into the appropriate lines. Some had the look of dread, while others couldn’t wait to introduce themselves to their new teacher. Friends got in line together for moral support, while the new students stood like statues, not knowing a single child.

I smiled at my students and the few lingering parents while they looked anxiously at the one or two first-graders crying as their parents tried to coax them into line. Despite these distractions, the lines moved quickly.

When it was our turn, I announced, Good morning, everyone! We are in room eleven. Follow me. After we arrived at the classroom door, I turned and said, Girls and boys, when you enter the classroom, you may choose a hook to place your jacket on. Then sit wherever you like.

*          *          *

The first day of school was always exhausting. I did more talking that day than the entire previous week. The energy I had expended to both challenge and care for each student depleted me, but it was worth the effort to observe students relax and become inspired all at once. I smiled on the drive home when reflecting on their body language.

A few stole glances at each other in disbelief that this young teacher thought they were smart. Others smiled knowingly, relieved that their intelligence had not gone unnoticed. Most heartwarming were those quiet, shy children who looked at me with a longing to be known and loved.

The students were well-dressed and had new, top-of-the-line backpacks and a crayon box that would put Crayola to shame. They were mostly white middle- and upper-middle-class children whose parents, I supposed, owned their homes, had good-paying jobs, and wanted their children to succeed.

*          *          *

I missed the black faces of the fourth-grade students I had taught in Washington just three years earlier. Many of them had also come from middle-class families whose parents supported them and wanted them to succeed. Others were poor and from single-parent households, their tuition paid by a parish scholarship fund. Teaching in a small, two-story urban elementary school with no trees and concrete everywhere felt confining. Still, I loved the forty-eight students I had.

I vividly remembered the day in February of that year, when I made the difficult decision to leave religious life. I had just finished putting up a new bulletin board, "Born free, as free as the wind blows, as free as