from David Lovell,
former colleague
If you ascribe to the notion that the world slowly arcs toward the positive, you take as a given that there are much better people than you doing the heavy lifting. It's unnerving when you meet one, especially if she's called Myra. And she's from Arkansas.
The Myra’s of the world fascinate us with their total commitment to an Art. Those whom some might refer to as obsessed, but who themselves remain oblivious – they do what they do because it is what they are, they haven't made a choice; they don’t perceive an option. When we are lucky, such people are oriented toward the good, their Art produces reciprocal good in those nearby. When we are very lucky, those people become our teachers.
When I first entered the Commons at Ensworth, I had no
Messages to and about Myra from friends, family, and former students' parents
Over the years, Myra has inspired, mentored, and cared for her students, their parents, and her colleagues and friends. Below are just a handful of the messages of love and gratitude that we've received.
idea what to expect. I was the product of a Jesuit education; a brain raised on logic, trained to think in straight lines and to wear tweed whenever possible. In scanning the Commons, I saw very little tweed, but I did see Myra. Within minutes, I assumed, as I'm sure most people do, that I was confronting the reincarnation of Flannery O'Connor.
Myra and I should not have liked each other; any Lifetime script about a high school faculty would automatically cast us as opposing archetypes. I was trained to be disciplined, could give a lecture that would end at precisely the minute I intended - she preferred beanbag chairs over desks and saw time as a tool of the Patriarchy. Yet I sensed we existed within the same gravity field; one that drew us to the center of a classroom with an unfelt, inescapable hold.
During my first few weeks at Ensworth, I spent time listening outside Myra’s classroom, trying to discern what magic she employed, what spells she cast to endow such love of literature. I found no magic other than the kind employed by all great teachers; an authentic love of her subject and an unabashed joy in sharing that love.
There are many similarities in teaching literature and history and many of the same pitfalls. Myra taught the Scottish play as many times as I taught the French Revolution; the difference was I knew the ending and I taught that way. For Myra, it was new each year – she told the story and laid out the fine points as if discovering them along with her students. I had knowledge to bestow, Myra discovered knowledge with those gathered around her.
Some of us are lucky to have had great teachers in our lives, some of us who become teachers are the same. I met Myra at a point when I thought I was as good a teacher as I could be; watching Myra showed me not only how much better I could be, but how much better it would feel.
-David Lovell, History teacher turned paramedic in Nashville, TN
from Ken Ellingwood,
former student
I don’t know why Myra plucked me from another teacher’s sophomore English class and put me in hers many years ago in Maine. I know this: it changed my life as a writer.
By then, I had mastered the structure of the five-paragraph essay, and grew more hooked on it as I went. Whatever the assignment, I laid out its trusty frame: introduction, three body paragraphs, conclusion. Look, Mom, no hands. I was a dancer with a single tired move—a moonwalk in five paragraphs. It drove Myra crazy. She loathed rote and the straitjacket of unconsidered convention. Myra prodded—implored—me to write with greater imagination.
While I cannot say that I kicked my five-paragraph habit by graduation, I would, eventually. And with every triumph I’ve
enjoyed as a journalist and author, I remember who first taught me that good storytelling means daring a new step. It was Myra.
-Ken Ellingwood, former correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, author of First to Fall: Elijah Lovejoy and the Fight for a Free Press in the Age of Slavery and Hard Line: Life and Death on the U.S.-Mexico Border.
from David Berry,
former colleague
A true teacher, she saw our beauty and brilliance before we saw it in ourselves, and she taught us that, in sharing it, we would come to see ourselves in a new light.
-David Berry, English and Theater teacher at Ensworth School
from King Hollands,
Civil Rights leader
March 5, 2012
Dear Myra McLarey
Thanks for the many hours of planning, writing, directing, and producing “Long Time Coming.” When we were talking during Grandparents’ Day, I never dreamed that the students, parents, and friends would get such an accurate, enjoyable account of the past.
Your contribution to this cause will long be remembered. Ensworth is proud to have a giant like you stepping out to save our history!
As you are well aware, the need is great and it is real. This education makes better citizens, and better citizens make a better world in which to live.
Thanks for allowing me to share the stage with my grandson, Anthony Batey, as I went back in history.
Sincerely,
King, Matthew, and Kwame
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