Faye Nalitt Halpern

I'm a 221, Winthrop, Wingate kid, but my most poignant memories are of Winthrop. I was in the Special Music Vocal Class, and we were a tight-knit group. We had chorus five days a week, plus two early morning rehearsals, and some of us went to the Brooklyn Boro-wide Chorus and All-City Chorus on Saturdays. Our teacher, Ms. Lieberman, was a much-respected, but crazy, perfectionist who once hurled Donna Zuller's books across the room because the second sopranos didn't hit their note. (Donna sat in the first row, so her books were easily accessible.) My favorite Winthrop memory is of the time we had a young, amiable, substitute English teacher and the class broke out into song: "Goin' to the Chapel and We're Gonna Get Married" in six-part harmony. It was not one of the songs we had rehearsed for Chorus; we had never sung it together before. It was just a magical moment, and the teacher was as delighted as we were. My funniest memory (also from Winthrop, I think) is of the time this student named Israel, who did some work in the office, obtained the the second page of a mimeographed sheet containing the class social studies test. He gave it to a member of my class, and each of us passed it around. When it was my turn, I took it into the girls' bathroom to read. It was winter and I was wearing a miniskirt and knee socks. I unthinkingly leaned against the bathroom radiator, burned my thigh, uttered an expletive while simultaneously grabbing my thigh, turning it purple from the ink that had transferred from the mimeo sheet to my hand. When I returned to class, it was all my fellow students could do to contain themselves, but bless them, they put up a good front. The teacher didn't notice, and I passed the sheet on to the next student.

To me, Wingate was a role in Sophomore Sing and the opportunity to work with talented and focused people. It was a series of excellent English teachers (especially Mr. Seligman) and an extremely annoying Spanish teacher who wore huge bird cage earrings and didn't teach much Spanish. It was Mrs. Rogers' modern dance class, which I took to get out of wearing a gym suit. It was cutting out early on Fridays to visit my future husband, Peter, at his college and almost getting caught by a truant officer (unless he was a stalker; I ducked him and he never got my name or address.). It was a teachers' strike and then, finally, the opportunity to take French, the language I had always wanted to study, during the second semester of Senior year.

I followed Peter to UMass, Amherst, where, unfortunately, I fell upon a French Department that was grammar, reading, and no conversation --just like high school. After one year of French, I switched my major to psychology. I married Peter during my junior year (That will make 40 years this January, plus 4-1/2 years dating.). I graduated into the same recession as all of you, and struggled for 7 years to get into social science publishing. At age 31, I made my first trip to France, and was able to speak the language, however imperfectly, from the first day. I began studying French at night, choosing a more practical approach, and was teaching by the time I was 38. I have been teaching French, and creating programs to teach French, ever since, and I make sure all of my students learn to speak. I've learned a lot of things over the years, but one of the most important has been that you should keep doing what you love, and, if you have even a modicum of talent, you'll get to where you want to be. (For a program that demystifies the French subjunctive, see Frenchsubjunctive.com and hit the audio button.)