Manita Guidero / Nery, Alderwood Middle School Home Ec.

I have been extremely fortunate to have had a number of excellent teachers throughout my life.  Some I have kept in touch with, others I wish I had made more of an effort.  One of the latter was my 8th Grade Home Economics teacher.  When I knew her, she was Mrs. Guidero, although I learned that in later years, she got divorced and became Ms. Nery.  She was about 40 years old and a new teacher to Alderwood Middle School when I arrived there in 7th grade. As I sat in her class on the first day of school, I was terrified of her.  She was, I thought, an unreasonably demanding battle-axe, outlining in excruciating detail during that first class exactly how we were to put the headings on our papers, how she would brook no foolishness, and all the behavioral strictures we were expected to observe in her class.  I found her so daunting that when one of the science teachers (another of my favorites) asked me to be a teaching assistant for him, I immediately dropped Home Ec.

The next year, I found myself back in her class, without the option of dropping.  I quickly learned that she expected a lot of us, because she had a lot to teach us.  I loved her class.  I learned a lot about cooking from her, and I did great.  I discovered that she recognized and respected good behavior, and was happy to give freedom to those who demonstrated they could handle it.  By the end of her class, I had so much enjoyed myself that I ended up becoming her teaching assistant the next trimester.  She taught me more about cooking, and taught me to teach, asking me to run entire cooking demonstrations in her class.  At the end of the year student awards ceremony, she gave me the Home Ec. cooking award for that year.

Mrs. Guidero, later Ms. Nery, continued to teach at Alderwood for the next 17 years, becoming, I have heard, a pillar of the school.  I suspect that she demanded, and got, the best out of a lot of students in that time.  I often thought of her, and several years ago I finally did some Googling to try to get in touch with her again.  I wanted to let her know what a positive influence I felt she had had on my life.  I was sad to discover that she had died in a freak hiking accident in Glacier National Park on June 28, 2002 at the age of 59.  I'm sad that I never got to talk to her again.  I expect I am only one of many lives that she touched in the course of her amazing career.