Ode to Mrs. Corratti

When I was in Second Grade at Lakewood Elementary School I had a fantastic teacher whose name was Nancy Corratti. From what I remember she was relatively young and had long blonde hair. She was one of the nicest ladies I had ever met and I adored her as my teacher. I remember she was good friends with my future fourth grade teacher, Bob Orsey. In our second grade world the whole class thought that Mrs. Corratti and Mr. Orsey would some day get married. Little did we realize, thanks to our childhood innocence, that Mrs. Corratti was already married and that men and women could simply be good friends.

After the first nine weeks Mrs. Corratti would read a special book- The Velveteen Rabbit. I remember she used to cry at the end of this book. It was something, that as a child, was new and wonderful. A teacher who showed her emotions. I remember how powerful it was to me that a book could make you happy and make you cry. I have loved to read for as long as I can remember. I am positive now that Mrs. Corratti crying while she read that book had something to do with. She showed me the power of words by reading that book and sharing that emotional reaction with the class. She wasn't ashamed or embarrassed about the tears. As a matter of fact, she chose one of us to hold the tissue box because she knew she would cry. Mrs. Corratti didn't just read this book once, but at least twice during the school year. Imagine that! A teacher who cried in front of her students.

As the years passed and I grew up and moved away from that school I always remembered my wonderful teacher. I have a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit on my personal bookshelf. I have become a teacher and I read to my students. Today I had some time to fill when half of my class was out with another teacher and I was left with just 7 students. I thought it might be nice to read a book we haven't read, but one that was shorter than a novel. We all walked to the library and I chose The Velveteen Rabbit. I told my own students the story of Mrs. Corratti and how this book made her cry because it was sad, but happy and touching at the end. I began to read (thinking all the time that this book has never made me cry when I read it by myself). Maybe it was the act of reading it out loud and to students of my own. Maybe it was something else, but I got to the end and began to cry. I started to lose it when the rabbit cries because he no longer is with the Boy and he is lonely.

He thought of those long sunlit hours in the garden- how happy they were- and a great sadness came over him. He seemed to see them all pass before him, each more beautiful than the other...Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground.

I really started crying (and two students jumped up to get me Kleenex and sat next to me in "the special spot") when the Fairy came to tell the Rabbit that she would make him Real for the whole world. She picks him up and flies him into the wood with the wild rabbits who teased the Rabbit once before for not having hind legs. She kisses the Rabbit and sets him down with the wild rabbits.

"Run and play, little Rabbit!" she said.
But the little Rabbit sat quite still for a moment and never moved. For when he saw the wild rabbits dancing around him he suddenly remembered about his hind legs, and he didn't want them to see that he was made all in one piece. He did not know that when the Fairy kissed him that last time she had changed him altogether. And he might have sat there a long time, too shy to move, if just then something hadn't tickled his nose, and before he thought what he was doing he lifted his hind toe to scratch it.

And he found that he actually had hind legs! Instead of dingy velveteen he had brown fur, soft and shiny, his ears twitched by themselves, and his whiskers were so long that they brushed the grass.


Today I endeared myself to some of my students by crying in front of them because of a book. I became, if only for a few minutes, their Mrs. Corratti. I can't think of a better person to be like.