standing up to miss steinke

I got two spankings in the first grade and had to stand in the hall once.  My teacher was an “old maid” named Calla Steinke. She lived a horse pasture and a street away from us with her parents in a duplex with a front porch that faced us. Her parents were deaf, and in the evenings, they’d go out on the porch to escape the heat, and we could hear every word she said.  That was before air-conditioning, and the windows were always open. I don’t remember what she said, but it sounded mean.

Miss Steinke used that same voice in our classroom.  I think I spent the entire year trying to get away from her voice.  Once I crawled under my desk, but she came and stood by me until I got back in my seat.  One spanking was when we were lined up to go into the auditorium.  I must have been talking.  I don’t remember what the other one was for.  She had a paddle, but she didn’t hit us too hard.  

Donna was a small town, and the entire school was on one huge block—the elementary, the junior high, the high school, the gym, the band hall, and the football field.  When I was in first grade, my father taught high school math and coached football, so I’m sure my parents knew everything that went on. But they never spoke to me about it. He and mother had a no interference policy when it came to my teachers.

But there was one time I stood up to Miss Steinke.   It happened during our reading circle, when about nine of us were reading aloud while the rest of the class did something else.  Dale Vaughn was in that group.  He lived outside town on the road to the river.  I’d been to their house with my father to buy eggs.  Miss Steinke was upset that Dale didn’t read better.  She berated him and said, “Dale, if you don’t do a better job than that, I’m going to put you out in the hall.”  I said, “Miss Steinke, I don’t think you should talk to him like that.”  She said, “Maybe you’d like to stand in the hall.” So, I did. I went home and bragged to my Mama about it. She said, “Oh?” Later I learned that Miss Steinke told Mama that I was a “spoiled brat.”