Published: February 1, 1995

Going Public

Our eyes catch in the cereal aisle. She has three small blond boys in tow. Two dangle from the front of the shopping cart; the other wobbles in the child's seat, chewing contentedly on a box of animal crackers. I don't recognize her until I hear her voice, almost a question: "Ms. Rubenstein?''

Now I remember her young face in the fourth row, fourth seat in Room 231.

That's how my students remain to me. No matter how they grow and change, their teenage selves are pressed in my memory like photographs in a scrapbook, their...