Saturday, May 24, 2014
Mr. Hadden was my 5th grade teacher in 1976-77. Up until the 5th grade, I did not do very well in school. I was placed from one grade to another. When I got to Mr. Hadden's class, I made a 100% turn around! He made learning fun and enjoyable. I looked forward to class each day. As is pointed out in the obituary, he found humor in every day situations. In class, he found humor in every day class! Here are some of the fun things I remember in Mr. Hadden's class:
He had a puppet of Grover from Sesame Street. Mr. Hadden would bring it out every so often and would imitate Grover. He sounded just like him!
On Halloween, He told us that he would tell us a ghost story and do something neat when we came back from lunch. When we got back and settled into our seats, Mr. Hadden came out of the closet with a candle. I can't remember what story he told but he had us sit on a chair (voluntarily, of course) and hold the candle underneath our chin. It supposedly was to show what we were from our past lives. I was an Asian person.
In the winter time he told us that if we wanted to make it snow so we wouldn't have to come to school the next day to do an Indian dance. He demonstrated how it was to be done. He assured us it worked with his previous class. I did it that night only to find out the next day he was just pulling our leg!
He would compare some of us to celebrities who were popular at the time... I was Lou Ferringo who played the Incredible hulk. He would look at me and imitate Bill Bixby turning into the hulk...
Mr. Hadden will be missed. He certainly made a difference in my life and I am better for having had him as a teacher. I send my condolences to the Hadden family.
