(i am so sorry this is late i was sick and i'm doing my best to catch up D:)
Audre Lorde, in her early years of school, had many different teachers. The first one, though it may not be obvious, is Mrs. Baker. Mrs. Baker is the whole reason Audre wanted to learn to read. Audre describes Mrs. Baker as a very quiet person with a voice that gave no "damnation for my noise." Mrs. Baker gave Audre the drive to want to learn to read and write, which her mother was very happy about.
The second, more obvious teacher would be Audre's kindergarden teacher (who I will refer to as Mrs. K). At first, it seems that Mrs K will be strict, but nice, but the reader soon finds out that this is not true. Mrs K called Audre fat straight to her face, which is very traumatizing for a girl at such a young age. Audre also already knew how to write the alphabet with a pencil, but Mrs K didn't like that. Mrs K wanted Audre to learn slowly with the other kids in class. Mrs K ended up trying to get Audre in trouble with her mother, but Audre's mother just took her straight to Catholic school to be put into 1st grade.
The third obvious teacher would be Sister Mary. This is Audre's first encounter of harsh racism, as seen with the "Fairies" and "Brownies", with the Brownies being the 'bad' side of the room. Even though the reader doesn't see Sister Mary teaching Audre anything academically important, she remembers the racism.
The last 'teacher' is her classmate, Alvin. Though it is not as obvious, Alvin was Audre's first experience in loss. They were just beginning to become friends, teaching each other numbers and words, when he died of TB. Even though Audre only learned three numbers from him (8, 10, and 20), he was able to teach her something meaningful - the importance of friends.
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