Mr. Stinson (Leonard M. Stinson, deceased) was my 5th grade teacher way back in 1966-67. He was a tall irishman with a great sense of humor and a fiery temper if you didn't get your homework in on time. He taught subjects in a most unique way, using his love of hobbies to bring reality to what we were being being taught. His classroom was full of plastic models that students before us had built. This was exciting to me as I had been making model airplanes since 3rd grade. My entire school year was based on planes, ships and autmobiles. He tied math, english, art and other subjects to these methods of transport. during our ships period, we visted Navy Pier and witnessed a ship being off loaded. we painted pictures of ships and racing boats.

The highlight of the period was when he put us in groups of 4, then plopped a plastic model ship onto our tables and we built them. Afterwards, we had to write a report on the model we built. Our group had built the USS Constitution, Old Ironsides. Noting my talents for buiding, he gave me an extra project, making the Lindberg kit of the Monitor and the Merrimack civil war ironclads!

When we did cars, we went to the auto show at McCormick Place, and we went to O'Hare to see airliners during our airplane period, when I was made aware of Amerlia Earhart. While he was a strict teacher with discpline, he made our school life fun. He had the whole class star as "The Dancing Molecules" during our school science fair. He made me feel like I mattered when the other kids were putting me down, making aware of how advanced I was in reading when the snarky girl classmate made fun of my math abilities. He pushed me to the point of fright in making me do my assigments. When I visited him in 1971, he told me I was a kid with talents he didn't want to see fall throught the cracks of inner city Chicago.

He left tons of National Geographic magazines laying about, and other publications of the time such as LIFE and their specials. How could you NOT learn to read??? I have an abiding appreciation for Rogers and Hammerstein thanks to his playing The King and I and other musical LPs in the background during a class day

I can say that I owe my present success to him and the other CPS teachers of the era. They don't make teachers like him anymore. Maybe they do, but they are probably shackled with No Child Left Behind and can't be as creative anymore. I pay him foward by volunteering in the schools of my town, teaching kids model rocketry and making it match what they are learning. Thank you for caring, Mr. Stinson, God's blessings upon you. Oh, and Debra Crook, if you ever read this, Hi, and I still love you, my 5th grade crush :)

Revell Walker

Lancaster California