Attaway, Billy Bob Great teachers we have known BILLY BOB THORNTON of Malvern, U.S.A., made the news again the other day. This time it was good news. The actor, writer, tabloid favorite and professional good ol’ boy won another award, this one at the 14 th annual Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration. We didn’t know our neighbors across the big crick had one of those. But it sounds like a great excuse to visit that historic river town and play Dixie to beat the band. Billy Bob picked up the Horton Foote Special Achievement Award for Screenplay Writing, which must be a really big deal. But it wasn’t what Billy Bob won that impressed us; it was something he said. Namely this: "I owe everything I have today to my mother and to Maudie Treadway." It should come as no surprise to learn that the late Maudie Treadway was one of Billy Bob’s teachers. She taught drama at Malvern High. (Home of the Leopards.) Billy Bob—you just can’t call him Mr. Thornton—says he muddled his way through high school. (He has dyslexia.) But he excelled in Miss Treadway’s drama class. And he’s kept on excelling. Maudie Treadway believed in Billy Bob, and Billy Bob clearly believes in Maudie Treadway. Call it another typical American success story—Great Teacher Changes a Life. Anybody who’s seen the best of Billy Bob—Monster’s Ball, Sling Blade, A Simple Plan— wouldn’t doubt for a Malvern minute that Billy Bob had been influenced by a strong teacher. The kind of sharp, caring guide and counsel who taught her students to meet the tough world head-on, even as they sought a better one where truth, love and understanding ruled. We’ve all got our Maudie Treadways. Or should have. We remember an English teacher who forced a classroom of giggly teenage boys to read Shakespeare’s sonnets. Some of us did more than read them. We started to like them and, would you believe even tried our hand at a sonnet ourselves. Of course we wouldn’t dare tell the other knotheads in class that we actually liked poetry. Then, one day after school, we ran into a classmate at the local bookstore. In front of the Classics section. Under S for Shakespeare. Far as we can remember, neither of us ever said a word about that chance meeting. At least till now. It was our shameful secret. To hear Billy Bob brag on his favorite teacher was to be reminded of what really works in the schools. All this talk about education reform, adequacy studies, curriculum requirements, standardized tests, accountability . . . the bureaucratese can get pretty thick. Before long, we’re all talking systems and forgetting what makes the difference in the classroom. Great teachers. If we can figure out how to get more Maudie Treadways in front of a class, we’ll really have reformed education in Arkansas. We don’t know what efficiency expert or political savant first said it, but it applies to education, too: Personnel is policy. -Editorial page, Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 2/27/2003