The Most Dreaded Teacher

In August of 1981, I was preparing to enter my freshman year at West Lafayette High School. We went school shopping and bought pencils, paper, folders, too-blue jeans and too-white sneakers. I had a perfectly bronze summer glow and a fresh trim on my long, blonde, Marsha Brady hair. I was nervous, but ready to move on and up.

And then the news that would send me to my room in tears came in the form of an official-looking letter from the school: My Algebra I teacher was to be the most dreaded math teacher in history. Ever. The name, Mr. Tatlock, evoked shivers and chills for less-than-stellar math students all over Tippecanoe County. Stories and rumors abounded regarding the horrors of his classroom. He was old. And mean. And unsympathetic. He will embarrass you in front of the whole class, pointing out to everyone how incapable you are of solving a simple algebra proof. The neighbor kids had both had him for math and my mother had already been advised by their mother that Mom had to get me transferred, if by unfortunate circumstance I happened to be placed in his classroom.

By the time mom got home from work that day, I was in hysterics. Ready to run off to Africa rather than face Mr. Tatlock and have my Math-Inadequacies scorned in front of my peers. My entire high school life was ruined, and it hadn’t even started yet. I begged her to call the school. I whined. I cried. I was pathetic.

But she sat me down and said, “What’s the worst that can happen? …That you fail the class and you have to take it over?”

(That I fail the class in front of my friends and a deep, black hole of humiliation swallows me up!) I stared at her.

“What if you succeed,” she asked me. “What if you try it and find that he’s not that bad and you can do it? I think you can. I KNOW you can.”

She gave me the mother of all pep-talks. We could get tutors. Mom and Dad would help me study every night. I should sit in the front row, because you learn more in the front. Everything I had heard about Mr. Tatlock was someone’s opinion. It didn’t mean anything until I met him and could form my own opinion.

So the first day of school came and I was scared out of my skull. When it was time for his class, I noted where all the smart kids were and sat very, very far away from them, in the front row, at the corner of his desk. I trembled when he spoke to me and I called him “Sir” every time I had cause to address him. The other kids teased me. They said I was “brown-nosing” him. They didn’t know I was terrified and trying to hold it together for that hour each day.

He turned out not to be so scary. His class was difficult, yes, but I slogged through it and even earned a few B’s and an occasional A. Being called to the chalkboard to participate in math races continued to make the bile rise in my throat, but I did it and even got better.

What happened, in the end, was something I couldn’t have imagined in a million years. I became a favorite of Mr. Tatlock’s, and he was The Favorite of mine. He attended my gymnastics and dive meets... He rode his bike past my house to chat with my mom working in her garden… I signed up for his Geometry and Algebra II classes… He and his wife even attended my wedding. He made a difference in my life: He taught me to like math and set a standard by which all my teachers and my children’s teachers would be measured.

For years after that, I considered writing him a letter and telling him how much I appreciated him back then and how much I treasure the memories of his compassionate teaching style, seeing him in the stands at my meets, with my parents, cheering me on. I even wrote a few drafts of a letter. But I never sent it.

And then, several years ago, I got a call from my mom. It was April 1st, 2001. Mr. Kenneth Tatlock, 78 years old, had been attacked by a dog while riding his bike. He didn’t survive the attack. To this day, I regret not telling him myself how much he meant to me, and with my 20th high school reunion two weeks away, I want the residents of Tippecanoe County and his family to know what a special and extraordinary man he was in my eyes.