ABSTRACT
Richard was a school psychologist who told this story in a sharing circle about teachers who inspired us by positive or negative example to become the educators we are today:
I was in first grade. I can see her face, but I can’t seem to remember her name. My brother had just died before I started school. She had a rocking chair in the classroom and on the first day of school, she picked me up on her lap in the rocker and began to rock me. She rocked, and I sobbed. And sobbed and sobbed. It was something I couldn’t do at home —not the way my family handled these things. And you know, she did that for months, every day for minutes or sometimes what seemed like hours. She took me into the chair and rocked me for about five months, when my crying was done.
