Surrender Yourself for More | Priscilla Shirer

I am the second of four children, and my siblings and I all attended a small private school just around the corner from our home. The school was called Brook Hollow Christian School, and we studied there from kindergarten through eighth grade. It was a very conservative Christian school, and one of their strict rules was that no one could wear pants. We had to wear skirts, and they were serious about it. The skirts had to be no shorter than the tips of our fingers when we stood with our arms at our sides, and they would measure to make sure it was the right length.

This rule applied not only to students but to teachers as well—they all wore skirts. I remember every teacher I had during those years, as the classes were small, and we got to know each other well. One of my favorites was my second-grade teacher, Ms. Wright. I loved Ms. Wright, and I can still picture her clearly in my mind. To my eight-year-old self, it seemed like she only had three skirts in her wardrobe—a black one, a navy one, and a cream-colored one. She would pair them with different blouses, and the skirts were either mid-calf or ankle-length, with ruffles that swished as she walked by our desks.

Ms. Wright had dark black hair, and the only bold thing she did with her appearance was wear dark eyeliner that gave her a sharp cat-eye look. I was so fascinated by her beauty. Her hair was always perfectly styled, like the women who would roller-set their wet hair and sit under a dryer for hours. When she walked into class, her hair would be perfectly in place, almost like a helmet, and she sprayed it with so much hairspray that the classroom lights would catch the shine of it.

To me and my friends, Ms. Wright was this one-dimensional figure. Like many kids feel about their teachers, it never occurred to us that she had a life outside of the classroom. She was simply the teacher who stood at the blackboard, chalk in hand, with her perfect hair and skirt, teaching second grade.

One Saturday, though, I had a moment of shock that changed how I saw her forever. My mom and I were grocery shopping on a hot Texas day, and while we were in line at the checkout, I was eyeing the forbidden candy bars, deciding which one to beg my mom to buy. Suddenly, I glanced up and saw Ms. Wright in the next line over. I froze in disbelief.

There she was, but she looked completely different! Her hair wasn’t styled in its usual way; it was loosely draped around her shoulders. She wasn’t wearing her signature eyeliner, and her face had just a light dusting of blush. And—this was the real shocker—she was wearing shorts! I didn’t even know Ms. Wright had legs! I stood there, staring at her, dumbfounded. She was with a man, whom I assumed to be her husband, and a young boy, likely her son. It suddenly hit me that Ms. Wright had a family, went grocery shopping, and had a life outside of being our teacher.

In that moment, I realized that I had been seeing Ms. Wright in just one dimension, the version of her that existed in the classroom. And I’ve thought about this over the years—though it’s been 40 years since that day, I’m not even sure if I said anything to her in the store because I was so stunned. If someone had asked me back then, “Who is Ms. Wright?” I would’ve simply said, “She’s a good teacher,” and left it at that. I had put her in a box, assuming that’s all she was, but seeing her outside of school made me realize she was so much more. Putting her in that box didn’t limit her life, but it certainly limited my understanding of who she was.