5 Questions 4 Elizabeth Buckles

What song always gets English teacher Elizabeth Buckles out on the dance floor? Who would she select to address the student body? What book does she think we should each read? All this and more in 5 Questions 4! 

If you could select any person - living or dead - to address the student body, who would you choose?

I'd have Sigmund Freud come and address the student body. He revolutionized the way we think about the human mind, and even though he was sort of a nut job, some of his psychoanalytic ideas still resonate today.

What is one book everyone should read?

Everyone should read Norton Juster's “The Phantom Tollbooth.” Milo's journey displays the indomitable positivity of the human spirit, plus Juster's writing is clever and just plain old-fashioned fun.  

What song will always get you out on the dance floor?

Omi's "Cheerleader" — something about the trumpets in the background makes me want to get my groove on.

Which fictional character from a book or movie would you most like to meet?

I would like to meet Mammy from Margaret Mitchell's “Gone with the Wind” and hear her perspective of being a Black woman in the South before, during, and after the Civil War, not to mention her thoughts on Scarlett O'Hara's shenanigans. 

When you were a child, what did you expect to be when you grew up?

I very briefly wanted to be a lawyer (as a child, I watched a ton of “Perry Mason” reruns), but I think I always knew I'd end up teaching, specifically at a boarding school. My father was a boarding school teacher, so some of my earliest memories involve classrooms and dining halls and campuses filled with high school students. The energy and engagement of those communities really made an impression on my young self.

For additional information, please contact Lisa M. Gillard Hanson, director of Public Relations, at lgillard@lawrenceville.org.