Emmett the Teacher

The 1953 Copenhagen High School Yearbook was dedicated to Emmett for his "pleasant and effortless" guidance. 

Emmett taught for many years in the Copenhagen School District and in Syracuse at West Genesee Junior High School.  Today's post includes stories about Emmett as a teacher. 

From my uncle Brian, the youngest child of Emmett and Anne:

After Brian graduated from Syracuse University in 1970 and before he went into active duty in the Army Reserves, he was a long-term substitute teacher at Copenhagen school. This meant he was teaching high school science at the same time Emmett (his father) was teaching junior-high science.  Brian noticed right away that standing up all day was quite noticeably uncomfortable on his feet and legs, a fact he mentioned to his father.  Emmett then relayed a memory of his first years teaching, when his own legs and feet had the same aching result. In fact, he told Brian that his shoe size increased from 7.5 to 8 during those first few months at the head of the class! He then advised Brian to always wear comfortable, soft-soled shoes, rather than hard leather-soles ones. As it turns out, there was an additional advantage to Emmett’s habit of wearing crepe-soled shoes.

Here is a story related to Brian by his long-time neighbor, Raymond Hebert, who was himself one of Emmett’s students:  As Raymond tells it, there was a memorable incident involving a seventh-grade perpetrator who, between classes, was observed with two other miscreants taking something from his locker. It was obvious to the observer that nothing good was going to come of this little activity. So the observer—none other than Emmett in his stealth shoes—crept up on the  miscreants, grabbed the leader by the scruff of the neck, and startled him so much that he dropped the item which was the intended source of the prank.  Scullduggery was stopped in its tracks.

In another incident, the silent-shoed Emmett was able to keep an innocent student from a punishment he did not deserve.  During a school assembly, one young student was seen to be squirming and jumping in his seat and about to launch an irritated reaction to the boy seated behind him. Some teachers thought the squirmer was the bad guy in this scenario, but Emmett (stealthily closer to the scene thanks to his “quiet shoes”) knew full well that the boy behind had been tormenting the squirmer by poking him with a thumb tack.  Emmett produced the thumb tack as the evidence that acquitted the squirmer and convicted the truly guilty party.

The final story comes from my dad Mark, the third child of Emmett and Anne. This story is similar to the one relayed by Brain above and it is possible that they are describing the same incident.  

When I had the New Boston farm (which was purchased in 1978 and was on Liberty Road) each year I would have a local farmer cut the hay in the field. For several years Tony Petrus took the hay back to his farm on the River Road near Copenhagen.  (Tony was in Janet's class at Copenhagen.) 

Tony related the following story to me while he was waiting for his son to come take a loaded wagon of hay bails back to their farm. He introduced the story by saying to me, "Mark, your Dad was a pretty observant man."  

When Tony was in the ninth grade there was an assembly for classes 7 through 12 in the gym.  As Tony was descending the stairs to enter the gym he saw an eighth grader in front of him jump suddenly. When Tony reached the same location he felt a sharp pain in his rump.  He stopped and stared down at an innocent eighth grade girl but suspected that she was not the problem.  He than looked behind her and notice a wise guy. Tony pushed the kid behind hime out of the way and as the trouble-making seventh grader glanced up Tony hit him in the face and knocked him out of his chair.  Tony then realized that this was going to be big trouble for him and he scanned the gym for teachers.  Across the gym he saw Dad headed his way.  Tony stood still waiting for stern words and fearing a trip to the principal's office. When Dad got close he got down on his hands and knees and was looking for something on the floor.  He found a dissecting needle  and stood up and gave it to the kid Tony hit who was crying loudly, "he hit me, he hit me." Dad had seen the entire sequence and knew who was to blame.  He said "bad move" to the troublemaker and said to Tony, "Mr. Petrus, keep moving, you are holding up the line."