Halloween: Be Your Future

The weeks before Halloween were always spent deciding who I was going to be. This photo was Halloween 1964–the year I was a scary witch. A few years later, I became the rabbit, once I grew into my sister’s costume. Thankfully Mom could sew creatively from bed sheets and fabric scraps.

Eventually I made it to sixth grade with Mrs. Yule. She was a delightful teacher—thoughtful yet demanding of our attention to details—like homework.  After school, I returned to my desk, where Mrs. Yule would patiently review my incorrect mathematical answers. She’d give me vocabulary drills, then we’d read my science text and work on the chapter questions. I spent many afternoons this way.


On a rainy October day, with Halloween looming and kids thinking about costumes, she asked me to imagine who I really wanted to be —not scary things, or even a super hero, but putting on a “costume” for my future self.


She wasn’t taking the fun out of Halloween, but using it as an opportunity to see how I could imagine myself differently. My artistic talents were as pitiful then as they are now, but I drew a girl standing in front of a classroom. I thought being a teacher would be my future.



Sixth grade


I remember thinking that she was treating me like I was one of the older kids now. She was showing me that school could be a road to get me to that future. 


I reconnected with Mrs. Yule when I was in college. By then, she had taught well over a thousand children. She’d given me study habits that lasted throughout my schooling. But it was the Halloween lesson that gave me a chance to imagine my future and continue the work that would take me there. It wasn't about candy and costumes that Halloween, it was about hope.


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