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Zippity-Do-Dah Or
What I Learned About Teaching While Whistling

Barbara H. Thomson
Richland Northeast High School
Columbia, SC

One afternoon in late spring, Miss Cloyd was diligently working at the front of the room with the Red Robins Reading Group. We "Blue Birds" were supposed to be working on some kind of seat work at our desks—quietly. (I think I remember coloring in the state of Kansas in my favorite sky-blue crayon). Suddenly—much to my surprise—I erupted into a loud whistle of at least eight bars of the first part of Zippity-Do-Dah, a then-popular song from a then-popular Disney film. I don't know why I did it. I knew better. But somehow it was such a beautiful day and I felt so happy in the classroom that, before I knew it, I whistled.

Miss Cloyd looked up sharply and said that whoever had made that loud and disruptive noise would have to stay in after school—a fate more dreaded than being sent to the principal's office. Everybody in the room turned around and stared at me, so pleading innocence was useless. I knew my mother (the spank-first-and-ask-questions-later one) was going to kill me for getting in trouble at school. Of that fact, there was no doubt! So I did the only thing I could do: I burst into tears. Loud, wracking sobs. Huge tears. Big boo-hoo's. I cried until I couldn't cry any more, and then I got the dry heaves and the hiccups simultaneously. I remember everyone in the class staring at me again. A few less kind souls snickered. One or two, I'm sure, even pointed at me. I don't know; I couldn't see anyone or anything except my brief life passing before my eyes.

Noticing my distress, Miss Cloyd, who was really a kind, motherly teacher, called me to the front, made a place in her matronly lab, and invited me to sit there. Without stopping her work with the other students, she rubbed and patted my back until I was able to compose myself a little. After a while, she sent me to the small sink at the back of the room to splash cold water on my puffy face and blow my leaky nose.

Then she took me into the hall and listened as I blurted out how happy I had been and how I hadn't meant to bother anyone. It was just that it was such a pretty day, and I was so happy. Miss Cloyd smiled at me gently and then she said something that astounded me. She said that such a pretty day made her feel like whistling too! I was too astonished to know what to say. Her, a teacher, whistling! I just couldn't fathom it! Nor could I picture her soft pink lips puckered in the process. Then, however, she reminded me firmly but with a smile that both of us would just have to remember that whistling out loud was not a thing either of us could do in class. and with a pat on my back, she sent me to finish my seat work.

I didn't have to stay in that day after all. My mother never knew of my transgression, and Earline Cloyd became my role model. I decided right then and there that when I got big, I was going to be just like her—a teacher who was a real person. Now many years later, there are some days when I think maybe—just maybe—I am.