Bring Me Home for Christmas (Virgin River #16)(46)

At first, Becca suspected the parents or siblings. It happened—words like dumb and stupid were tossed around the home and it hammered little self-esteems. But then her mind was changed.

Becca asked if she could look at some of Megan’s papers. She had a folder with at least a week’s worth of work tucked inside. In fact, it was a great deal of work for an eight-year-old. She flipped through the pages and saw something she didn’t like. On all the papers that weren’t perfect, there were painfully negative remarks from the teacher. You can do better than this! This needs work! Do this spelling test again! This is late! Frowny faces!

And on the pages that were excellent, no comment at all. Just a letter grade. A. B. No pluses, no minuses. No stars, no happy faces, no praise. No effort anywhere to encourage the child when she’d done well. Zero positive reinforcement.

Becca had a sinking feeling in her gut. This was sadly familiar to her. For her, it was fifth grade, then again when she was a junior in high school. A couple of teachers who made their impact on her by being ruthlessly negative. The fifth-grade teacher kept telling her if she wanted to get to sixth grade, she’d better apply herself. It didn’t take long before she believed there was a sound chance she wouldn’t promote to the next level and her stomach hurt every morning before school. The high school English teacher, who seemed to favor the boys in the class, told Becca’s parents that she “wasn’t college material.” The family joke was that it was lucky Beverly Timm hadn’t been armed! Both teachers from hell; both enjoyed long careers even though they were mean as snakes and made no effort to help.

Both times, Becca had believed her teachers hated her. What she eventually learned was that she was right! But the teachers actually disliked almost all their students and they weren’t crazy about teaching, either.

Once Becca was a teacher herself, she had a closer view. The great teachers outnumbered the bad, thankfully, but it was hard to get rid of the ones who hurt. Their negative impact was so subliminal, so pervasive. So powerful!

Fortunately for Becca, there had been a few teachers who made major changes in her life with their encouragement and positive reinforcement. At the end of the day, Becca graduated from high school with good grades, though she was nowhere near competing for valedictorian. She left college with a 3.2 GPA—a completely respectable performance.

She’d gotten very good reviews on her teaching, but the feedback that meant the most to her was from the kids, most of whom seemed to strive to impress her. And there were parents of second graders who thanked her. She took that very seriously.

The three of them worked on homework until Lorraine Thickson came to collect her kids. Her coat thrown over her pink waitress uniform, a great big purse hanging on her shoulder, she came into the conference room. “Ellie said you were working on homework,” she said by way of greeting.

“That we are,” Becca said. “What a smart girl you have here. We’ve hardly started on this week’s work and she’s almost ready for that spelling test!”

“Oh, that’s so nice!” she said, holding her arms open to her daughter. She leaned down and said, “Go find your brother and get your coat, honey.”

Once Megan had run off, Danielle following her, Becca faced Lorraine. “I’m going to ask Ellie if we can do homework together after school again. Would that be okay with you?”

A look of surprise and hesitation came over her face.

“I have nothing to do except elevate my leg,” Becca said. “And they’re such fun. I should probably ask Christopher if he wants to join us, too.”

“That’s awful nice of you,” Lorraine said shyly. “The teacher keeps asking me to work with her, but it’s almost impossible. I work five to five and—”

Becca’s jaw dropped. “Five to five? A.M to P.M?”

“The overtime comes in handy. My husband had a job injury and he’s home with the two little boys all during the day. By the time I get dinner and some chores done, Megan’s off to bed. I know she needs the help and Frank just doesn’t have the patience.”

“She doesn’t need that much help,” Becca said, shaking her head. “She’s smart. She just needs a little encouragement. I looked at her papers—she’s doing fine. Nothing on her papers that would alert me to a learning problem, though I only saw about a week’s worth.”

“She’s had a very hard year,” Lorraine said.

“She told me about her dad. I’m sorry—it must be hard. I hope things will go better soon.”

“Thanks,” Lorraine said. “That’s appreciated.”

“So? Is it okay? Can we have a little homework club after school?”

“If it’s okay with Ellie, I sure wouldn’t mind. In fact, I’d be so grateful.”

“I’ll check that out. I have a feeling she’ll be okay with it.”

Becca met Denny for dinner at the bar. Since there were no real cooking facilities in his little efficiency and given the fact that he helped out at the bar on most of his evenings, it made sense he would take almost all his meals there. During Thanksgiving week, the place had been fairly quiet—townsfolk had family obligations. But on this Monday night after the holiday, there were quite a few of the locals. Mel was there; Becca learned that it was pretty common for Jack’s wife and kids to have at least a couple of dinners a week there, often more. Jack’s sister, Brie, and her husband, Mike, turned up with their little daughter, making it a family affair.