The Quiet Boy

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It happened during her second month as a teacher. She was 23 and frustrated. She’d expected to end up in a city, but Teach For America had sent her here, to this little town built around a dead railroad station: Rexford, West Virginia. Another teacher had told her the unofficial town motto was “Hills, Whores, and Liquor Stores.” She hadn’t seen any whores, as far as she knew, but there were definitely hills and liquor stores.

“Okay, guys,” Julia told her fourth graders. “Settle down and start writing your stories.”

She was lucky, she knew. She’d been born with a teacher’s voice. Confident but kind, pleasing to the ear but full of authority. They listened when she spoke. If you couldn’t get them to listen, you were dead.

You needed other things too. Patience. A good memory of who you had been at that age. But most of all, you had to love the kids—suffer when they struggled or when something bad was going on at home—be happy for them when they succeeded or when they laughed wildly at a dumb joke. And she did. She loved her kids.

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