Jacqueline Wright

After the 2016 national election, I asked my mother if she was sad that she’d probably never see a woman in the White House. She paused a moment and then she smiled. She said she’d already seen a woman in the White House. And then she reminded me of the time when Eleanor Roosevelt invited her and a few other American Red Cross volunteers over for tea.

The year before she had bumped into the First Lady during her tour of Brisbane where my mother was stationed.

At the White House, she leaned toward Mrs. Roosevelt and stage-whispered, “We have to stop meeting like this.”

At Dartmouth Jr. High, when her students marveled at her detailed knowledge of American history, she joked it was because she lived through most of it.

Born before women won the right to vote, and having served overseas in WWII, there was some truth in her light-hearted explanation.

My mother first started subbing in the Union School District and when there was an opening for an 8th grade American history teacher, she jumped at it.

She loved teaching and to say that she loved American history is an understatement.

At one point during her job interview, she was asked, “How would you teach American history?” Her face lit up and she was off to the races. She talked about how she thought it was important that students learned about the bad along with the good and to do that she would have to supplement the textbook. She didn’t think history should just be propaganda for patriotism. She said students should be active and on their feet and participating in democracy and not just reading about it. Suddenly realizing she might be going on for too long, she stopped, looked at the superintendent, and waited for the next question.

There wasn’t a next question.

He just looked at her with a serious expression, like maybe she was a Yellow Dog Democrat who just crashed a meeting of the John Birch Society. She broke the silence by saying she was sorry she wasted her breath because she knew she had wasted his time and she got up and left.

But the superintendent had just been at a loss for words. By the time my mother arrived home there was a phone message that she was to come in the following day and sign her contract.

It would prove to be a good hire.

In my mother’s classroom, the textbook was an accessory, not the focus. Instead of lectures, she told "rattling good stories."

(By her own admission, she was not above "improving on the facts" if it made it more interesting. So did she actually stage-whisper that line to Mrs. Roosevelt? We'll never know. )

My mother regarded the classroom as a stage where she could be theatrical and where students could learn through role-playing.

By her own admission, my mother was a ham. (Not surprisingly, of her three children, two became teachers, and one became an actor.)

Her classroom was modeled after the U.S. government with the class divided into the three branches. Everybody had a role to play. Students were out of their seats, running for office, campaigning for candidates, trying court cases, drafting legislation and carrying out mandates. She pioneered the use of simulations in the classroom and presented papers on the subject.

Out of the classroom, students learned about the justice system by riding in patrol cars with policemen and visiting Superior Court downtown to see real court cases in action. Sometimes on these trips students held their own classroom court cases when vacant courtrooms were available.

One time during a study period, she herself was charged with “disturbing the peace” for taking pictures for the yearbook and she was put on trail. Even though she managed to get the principal to leave the office to take the stand as a character witness, she was found guilty and fined $10.00.

Her students could be seen "putting into practice what they were learning about the democratic process." They fanned out through the neighborhood, knocked on doors, and registered 100 voters-- something I’m not sure liability concerns would allow today.

During election years, she often had candidates speak to her classes. John Vasconcellos was a regular. Shortly after Rose Bird spoke to her class, she was appointed Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. I never asked my mother if she had anything to do with it.

A principal often feels reassured that a teacher is doing a good job if he walks by the classroom and hears silence--silence being a common indicator of good classroom control. But from Mrs. Wright’s cluttered classroom you'd hear the sound of activiity, engagement, and real learning.

Her approach to teaching was to embrace the proverb:

Tell me and I’ll forget.

Show me and I’ll remember.

Involve me and I’ll understand.

And that sometimes made noise. And sometimes ruffled feathers.

(In all honesty, she took impish delight when it ruffled some feathers.)

When some parents bemoaned the fact that a lot of their children wasted time watching Saturday morning cartoons, my mother joined with them to create their own Saturday morning TV show on cable so that academics would complete for their attention. My mother was the host. She showed academic films, provided commentary, and threw in some school news (and school rumors) to spice it up a bit.

At the end of each broadcast, her sign-off was to hold up two fingers and say “Peace,” form the letter L and say “Love,” and then join her fingers in a fist and say “Togetherness.”

She said the word “Togetherness” with a gentle smile on her face but inside her head she was saying, “My God, I’m on TV representing the Union School District and I’m flashing the Black Power salute!”

Fiercely independent, my mother lived by herself in her house until shortly before she turned 100. Too weak to stand for more than a minute or two, she washed dishes at the kitchen sink while sitting on a high stool. Every time I visited her she told me how much she missed teaching.

Maybe she didn't remember how exhausting teaching can be when it happens to be more than just a job. I remember that in later years during the work week, she would get home from school, go to bed, get up a couple hours later, fix dinner, and then go back to bed. Teaching for my mother was never just a job.

She retired in 1977 and became the district's Teacher of the Year.

It's an honor she still cherishes.

I am very grateful that Union School District took a chance on my mother and that the administration was enlightened enough to give her the freedom to be creative, to be inspirational.

My mother retired before the push for “standards” became the new trend where testing and accountability often resulted in micromanagement and the stifling of teacher creativity.

Sometimes the best thing a school administration can do for a teacher is to just get the heck out of the way and let that teacher teach. Union School District did that and more.

Death Announcement

The wonderful, long life of Jacqueline Wright came to a peaceful end in San Jose on Tuesday morning, September 22. She was 103.

She will be laid to rest in Golden Gate National Cemetery beside her husband’s grave.

No memorial services will be held.

Donations in her name may be sent to Dartmouth Home & School Club, 5575 Dartmouth Drive, San Jose, CA 95118 or to The American Red Cross, PO Box 37839, Boone, IA 50037-0839.

robtwright@gmail.com

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