My second grade teacher was Mrs. Brandt. Here are a few other things I remember about Mrs. Brandt. She was always so incredibly nice to us kids. Mrs. Brandt never raised her voice and always had infinite patience. Once during a heat wave Mrs. Brandt brought witch hazel and cotton balls to school. When us kids were sweltering in our not air conditioned classroom Mrs. Brandt would swipe our heads and cool us off. I wasn't used to having a teacher who was so warm and caring. Back then a NYC school teacher had to meet different standards. One of the the requirements was that taechers play a musical instrument. Mrs. Brandt played the piano. But the thing was that she only had 9 1/2 fingers. And all I wanted to do when I was a kid was see Mrs. Brandt's 1/2 finger work the piano keys and see how it was doing it. But Mrs. Brandt played to us kids in the school's auditorium and us kids were seated in the theater area and we couldn't see Mrs. Brandt's hands no matter how hard we tried. Then one day Mrs. Brandt told us that she lost her 1/2 finger in an accident when she was a young girl. Mrs. Brandt said that when she woke up from the operation the first thing she asked the doctor was if she would still be able to play piano and that he had told her YES and Mrs. Brandt knew everything would be just fine. I thought Mrs. Brandt, even as a kid, was just amazing.
It was back to school night for Josh tonight and I got to hear Josh's teacher talk for an hour. I am very excited because I think she might be a Mrs. Brandt.
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