Misty Watson: To my teachers, thank you

Even though I was a straight-A student until college, I didn’t test well.

I did well enough on the regular tests in each class to make sure you’ve retained the material. But when it came to the major tests, the ones that could easily change my future, I panicked under the pressure. That’s probably why I haven’t tried out for “Jeopardy!” yet.

When I took my driving test my nerves got the best of me, and when the person administering told me to turn right, I turned left.

The more pressure that was placed on me to do well on a test, the worse I did.

I barely passed one section of my graduation test my junior year. The morning of my Advanced Placement (AP) exams, I was physically ill. Luckily, I maintain the ability to write under an extreme amount of pressure, which pulled me through my AP English exam with a score good enough to skip English 101 in college. I can’t say the same for my AP calculus test, where the pressure caused me to forget what an integral was. I think I scored what I did just for having my name on the test.

So of course, I didn’t exactly have high expectations for the SAT.

After taking it a few times and seeing that my score was actually going down instead of up, I decided I would never make better than an 1100 (this is when a perfect score was still 1600). I prayed my grades and extra-curricular activities would get me into my college of choice — Young Harris College with a scholarship. They did, by the way.

But not testing well meant I didn’t get to be the STAR student, who is chosen primarily based on SAT scores, which meant I didn’t get to choose a STAR teacher. Monday as I was photographing a Kiwanis luncheon for Whitfield County and Dalton’s STAR students and teachers, I longed for the opportunity to honor the person who would have been my STAR teacher.

Even though it has been almost 12 years since I graduated from Murray County High School, I watched with envy as each student got up and gave detailed accounts of why this one teacher had influenced their lives.

Then I realized, “Hey, you have this space in the newspaper and you can write about how awesome several of your teachers were.” Of course, I’m assuming they’d want to admit having had me as a student.

Troy Beasley, who is now deceased, had high expectations for his students. I had him for 11th grade honors and senior AP English. He was tough, but he pushed us to prepare us not just for college, but for the rest of our lives. You couldn’t read the Cliff Notes and pass one of his tests. I hear a lot of criticism about the Murray County school system, including that students aren’t prepared for college. Well, that’s hogwash, especially for anyone who ever had the privilege of calling Mr. Beasley a teacher. When I got to college, I had read almost everything on our reading lists. I knew how to write an essay and how to cite it. If a student wasn’t prepared for what’s to come after high school, it’s because the student didn’t put forth an effort to be prepared.

I had Linda Lunsford in her last year of teaching at the high school. I had her for 10th grade honors English. I think by the time I’d gotten to her class, she’d had a lifetime’s worth of teaching Watsons, one of whom was my dad. Without her constructive criticism, I wouldn’t be a writer. She taught me to keep my writing simple. Make it concise. And if it wasn’t for her, I may have never learned when to use a comma. Every time we wrote anything in her class, we had to pull out our list of comma rules and put the number of the rule above the comma. I said some not very nice words about that every time I had to do it, but it worked. Miss Lunsford never quit teaching me. She still encourages my writing.

It’s a shame Murray County lost Mark Miles as a math teacher when he went to work for a school in Cleveland, Tenn., a few years ago. He was full of energy and showed us that learning even something as dry as math could be exciting. I was fortunate enough to have him twice, for algebra and for geometry. If I’d been able to have him for every single math class, I would have. He sang goofy songs in an operatic style just to hold our attention while talking about proofs.

Angie Johnson taught art. She worked hard to show me that not everything has to be perfect — a hard lesson for me to learn. Because of her, I finally found a way to release some of my stress and anxiety in a healthy way. She also laid the foundation I needed to become a photographer by showing me framing, lighting and composition in drawings and paintings. Mrs. Johnson took it a step further than curriculum and taught her students about acceptance and understanding people who are different from us.

But long before all those teachers, there was one who stands out, one who was kind and patient and believed all of her students had the ability to be great. Betty Hammett, my fourth-grade teacher at Spring Place Elementary, showed me that everyone has a different set of talents. She encouraged mine and made them flourish. Being an artist herself, she wanted all students to learn to draw. She wanted all students to learn to write. Because of her, I realized I had those talents, and I realized I loved that I had them. Mrs. Hammett once gave me permission to do something on the condition that one day I’d dedicate a book to her. I’ve never forgotten that. I doubt I’ll ever write a book, but you better believe I think of her and her lasting influence on me every time I sit down to write.

Murray County native Misty Watson-Wheeler is a photographer and reporter for The Daily Citizen. Contact her at mistywatson @daltoncitizen.com.

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