Shooting puppies

My favorite teacher of all time was my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Walters. It was unusual for men to remain as elementary teachers and not to go into administration where there were better salaries.

But Mr. Walters loved kids and classroom teaching, and two generations of students loved him. He was a large, gentle man who knew how to make learning fun. To this day I can remember his stories and things that I learned in his class.

To supplement his teaching salary he bred and trained hunting dogs, which everyone agreed were the best in Indiana, if not in the whole country. They were well bred, well trained and he charged top dollar for them.

It was a small school. Most of us had been together since first grade. Our fourth grade teacher had been a cream puff and we were a pretty unruly bunch by the time we started fifth grade.

The first day amid ten-year-old restlessness, giggling, and fidgeting, Mr. Walters started telling us what fifth grade would be like and what he expected from his students.

Somehow he got on the subject of his hunting dogs and how he trained them to be the very best. When they reached a certain age, he told us, he took them out to the woods and fired a shot with his rifle. If any of the pups bolted and ran away, he would turn the rifle on the pup and shoot it. This was necessary to produce a superior line of dogs, he said. He knew that pup would never be a hunting dog and it should never be bred.

Dead silence.

No one even breathed.

Fifty saucer shaped eyes didn’t leave his face as he went on to tell us what he expected from good little scholars and citizens in his fifth grade class…

On the last day of school we had a field trip to a local lake. At the end of the afternoon we gathered around Mr. Walters to listen to his stories. We were sad, knowing that we would not be with him after this day.

Finally we got up the nerve to ask him. “Would you really shoot a pup if it ran away at a rifle shot?”

He laughed, “I don’t know, it never happened. But sometimes I’ve had to tell that story to get my students’ attention. It always does.”

Oh, yes.

Comments

[Rhea]

Sadist!

[Steve]

Thats a great story. My 7th grade teacher told us a story about killing an alligator and he never had a discipline problem freom that day on.

[Marion]

Wow. What an amazing teacher, and what a memory to cherish. Well told, as well...you had me holding my breath when he said he turned the gun on the pup!

[jackie]

holy shit..i hope his other stories were more inspiring..ha

[ed]

youll get grief over this post from the bleeding hearts, but this is exactly the way great lines of hunting dogs have been developed.

[rosemary]

Interesting....Sister Thaddeus made me do long division....I hated math after that.

[Charlie]

Yeah, but after hearing that story would you want to go anywhere with the guy?

[Sling]

I think Mr. Walter's methods would spark an outrage today.
Personally,I think he was absolutely brilliant!..
Here you are today,still remembering him.

[Wendy]

Great story. I'm glad he wasn't culling puppies with a rifle, that part made me sad.

[Tony]

I have to say, that creeped me out a little. Though, some of the things the nuns said probably warped me for life. Ah, childhood!

[Lonie Polony]

Pretty risky strategy. I think if I were a child in his class and he told me that, I would hate him from that moment on.

On ed's comment: I don't consider myself a bleeding heart at all for being of the opinion that it's completely unnecessary to shoot puppies to ensure great lines of hunting dogs. (I realise you didn't say it was, Jan:))

[BB]

This could get a teacher today his own trip to the office, and many calls from parents for threatening to shoot students. I liked it.

[threecollie]

Whoa...that raised the hairs right up on the back of my neck until I read then end. Great story!

[Julie]

Great story! I would not doubt that back in the "dark ages" (i.e. before PETA reforms) it really happened. Back 20, 25 years ago, drowning a litter of unwanted kittens or puppies was an accepted, and unprotested, method of pet population control.

[jan]

And now PETA waits until they're grown to kill 97% of the pets entrusted to their care.

[schnoodlepooh]

I was getting all ready to be very very angry.

[Hazel]

Hi Jan

In England the thought police would definitely get him sacked in these enlightened (or should I say empowered) times!

Woofs from Charlie to Misty.

Hazel

[Coll]

Sad to think that this might actually happen.

[Neva]

This is such a great story.....and even if that is what happens.....it truly is a good read!!

[Lora]

What a great story! Too bad teachers can't tell "stories" to get kids attention any more.

[Louka]

My dad told the story of a teacher with a very large, funny nose who on the first day of class told the students. "This is my nose. It looks very strange, I know. You now have five minutes to laugh about it to my face". He encouraged the students to do so and therefore get the hilarity and comments out in the open. No one talked about his nose behind his back after that, there was no point. Another (this was his teacher's teacher, so back in the teens or 20s or so) pulled out a hunting blade and plunged it into the table to get his students' attention. He then proclaimed "Lame en table" which literally means "blade in table" but sounds like "lamentable". No one dared do anything bad in his class after that one...