Happy b'day Patty & Jimmy

Just remembering these pals

On two different 7 Decembers, the world got lucky. Patricia Pullen took her first breath in 1938 and James Kauffman took his first hit of air in 1940. Though neither one is still sucking wind, which is sad, it’s still a great day to remember them.

Patty Pullen and Jimmy Kauffman celebrating their birthdays in 2008. Photo by John Wills Lloyd © Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)0

These two people had wonderfully positive influences on me. Patty was not just a great friend, but she was a superb teacher. When I visited her classroom full of lively, excited little kids, I got to see her at work employing effective practices. She knew how to teach; her second graders, who had a variety and intellectual and behavioral problems,;they could read just as well as their non-disabled second grade peers—and better than some. Not only did she teach those kids well, but she taught me a shipload, too. In my classes for aspiring teachers I would show a little montage-video¹ of photos of Patty and tell the students that I hoped they each could be as good a teacher as she was, but that if just one of them could, the world would be a better place.

Jimmy also was also a great friend and a superb teacher. Never mind that he taught students who were way older (and had far more well-developed thinking caps) than Patty’s. He taught content and skills that would last undergraduate and graduate students their entire careers. Indeed, he taught me a plenty, too, from being precise about the individual words one uses to encouraging early career writers to explain ideas clearly.² And, Jimmy provided lots of demonstrations about how to think carefully and compassionately about special education and disability issues for anyone anywhere on Earth to read.

So, on the anniversaries of their births, I stand up straight (at least as straight as my crooked old spine will allow), and I look at the world around me with wide-open (but a bit hot) eyes and a very full heart, and wish these two “happy birthday!”

Footnotes

1. I should search my files from 20 years ago, find that movie, and publish it for you, dear readers, to see.

2. Some readers will tell others privately that I didn’t learn that lesson particularly well.