Do you remember the name of your kindergarten teacher? I do. Her name was Mrs White. I don’t remember much about what we learned in her class, but my mother once told me that we used to write a lot. And I would bring back what I wrote and she would look at it and see there were so many mistakes. But no red corrections. And always a star. It worried my mother, so one day she went to meet Mrs White and asked her why she never corrected my mistakes or pointed out grammatical errors.
Mrs White said, “The children are just beginning to get excited about using words and forming sentences. I don’t want to dampen (使受挫折) that enthusiasm with red ink. Spelling and grammar can wait. The wonder of words won’t…” She maybe didn’t say it exactly like that. My mother gave me what she could remember. I added in the rest. I grew up learning to use words like that.
And it occurred to me that if Mrs. White had used her red pen more, I probably wouldn’t be telling you about this now. I look back now and think she must have been a rather extraordinary teacher to allow the joy, wonder and excitement of expression to flower like that. Because to bloom is better than not to bloom.
I used to misspell ‘beautiful’ a lot. Pretty is easier to spell but it doesn’t hold as much as you mean sometimes. I kept on using ‘beautiful’. Eventually the letters settled into their right places. And thanks to Mrs White, I had been writing what I meant even if I couldn’t quite spell it out. Life isn’t Pretty. It’s Beautiful.
【小题1】What worried the author’s mother?| A．The author’s learning little. | B．The author’s not getting a star. |
| C．The teacher’s not using red pens. | D．The author’s uncorrected mistakes. |
| A．She didn’t have a red pen. | B．She was too busy to do that. |
| C．She wanted to protect their excitement. | D．She just ignored the children’s mistakes. |
| A．Grateful. | B．Doubtful. | C．Regretful. | D．Respectful. |
| A．Humorous. | B．Caring. | C．Demanding. | D．Generous. |
