THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 17, 1995 TAG: 9506170343
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Charlise Lyles
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
Little Zakee Khabeer, a brown-dimpled cherub, gave the welcome.
Jessica Alston, long-legged and dignified in a French roll, white tights and tiny heels, accepted the plaque and $100 savings bond for best student.
Shevon Ricks, barely tall enough to reach the podium, told everyone in the stained-glass Park Place United Methodist Church sanctuary of her dream to become a chemist.
The fifth-grade class of James Monroe Elementary School was shining with promise the way children do on their graduation. Sixty-four bright-eyed, snaggle-toothed smiles. Boys in bow ties. Girls in white lace dresses and stockings - maybe for the first time.
Elated parents like Gordon Wynn, a Norfolk taxi driver and father of Evita Robinson, took turns dashing to the front to capture photos or videos.
Principal Barbara Higgins, a paragon of conscientiousness and gentle firmness, stood before the assembly. This was her first year as principal and her first graduating class. She urged the smiling faces to think big about the future.
Then Miss Chiquita Tucker rose to call her class to commence.
``A teacher is accountable to God,'' Miss Tucker said. Her voice was warm, engulfing like a blanket, a voice that you would want to correct and guide your child.
There was a resolve about Miss Tucker, the way she stood over her students, exuding a sense of responsibility for being entrusted with young, impressionable minds and hearts. And there was pride in the angle of her chin, just slightly up toward the heavens as if she were answering to her celestial boss.
And to tell you the truth, Miss Tucker didn't seem too worried about all the obstacles that are supposed to stand in the way of educating children in places like Park Place. Rather, she was consumed with simply being a good teacher.
As she read the names of each student, Miss Tucker was unable to refrain from commenting on how their lives had edified her own.
How Kevin Mahone caused her to reflect on how to correct a child, how to speak to a child.
How Michelle Warren had taught her the power of encouragement. Eager-eyed Michelle had gone from a girl who refused to believe she could work math problems to one who leaped at the chance to go to the chalk board.
By the time Miss Tucker read the last name, I was convinced she had learned just as much from her students as they had learned from her.
This, in my book, makes her a true teacher, up there with Plato and Aristotle on the master/disciple plane.
One by one, Principal Higgins congratulated each student: 64 clammy, impatient, eager hands shook hers, accepting the fifth-grade diploma. Her greatest wish along with Miss Tucker's: that in seven years, they will receive yet another diploma.
Higgins knew every student by name and could proudly state his or her achievements and struggles.
The assembly filed out, surely leaders of the 21st century among them, if, as Miss Tucker did, other teachers hold themselves accountable to a higher power. Come fall, 30 more precious little lives will be entrusted to Miss Tucker.
And as I drive down Colonial Avenue on my way to work, past shabby tenements, fields of shattered glass, past Monroe Elementary School, I will find it comforting to think of Miss Tucker in her classroom with her students. by CNB