Influential

From what I remember about school, there are three types of teachers. There are the good ones, the ones who take the time to connect with you and are passionate about their work. Then there are also the bad ones. They leave an impression for basically the opposite reason. Perhaps they are good educators but kind of jerks, or perhaps they’re nice enough but you don’t learn anything. Worse, maybe they’re both incompetent and mean, pulling you away from laughing with your friends to ask you if you enjoy being mean (seriously, where the hell did that come from?). Finally there are the ones that don’t leave an impression either way. I’d talk more about this kind but I don’t remember much about them.

No matter the variety, each teacher has done something to shape you. But for most, good, bad, or indifferent, it’s just a dent. For example, I remember all the way back to kindergarten, where the teacher was a good one, if strangely uptight about some things. She affected me, yes, just not to the degree of, say, my fourth grade teacher (in terms of ugh, e-gad!) or my eleventh grade English teacher (best ever, by the way).

My point is that teachers are extremely influential people. My not-remarkable teacher is another’s great one, or maybe someone’s biggest frustration. The worst teacher I ever had may have actually had a positive impact on someone’s life (although for various reasons I won’t get into that involve some very bad stuff, I strongly doubt it). And as the holiday season approaches, perhaps it would be nice to do something in memory of a teacher (a donation to an educational organization) or if you have school age children, one of their teachers (not a scented candle; from what I heard, that’s the go-to gift and they have enough to get them through power-outages for the rest of their lives).

What were our most influential teachers and what lessons did you carry away? If you’re a teacher, what kind of gift do you suggest?

Teaching Good and Teaching Well

I was both a fan and a detractor of English class, maybe because until high school, junior year, I had some pretty lousy English teachers (the one exception, eighth grade, had a baby and was out half the year; her replacement was less than stellar). College was, for the most part, much better. Want to know why my feelings are generally negative? It's pretty much summed up in this comic.

Zach Weiner is one of the funniest, smartest comic writers I’ve come across, and once again he hit the nail on the head. I like novels. I like discussing novels. Heck, I even like writing about novels. But damn it, I don’t want to create a newspaper on the events in Verona during Romeo and Juliet. That is stupid. It’s not analysis of the novel, it’s not opinion and it’s not teaching me how to write. It’s busy work, a stupid task that has no educational value (my teaching friends, feel free to correct me, but I can only give a student’s opinion).

My favorites were teachers who taught, actually taught. They made us read The Great Gatsby or Great Expectations or Othello, but had us do something interesting with it—for Gatsby, we broke into groups and reenacted the chapters; for Expectations, we wrote our own ending; Othello was a study on violence. I also loved just sitting around and talking about the book, hearing what others thought about it. One thing about college: there were very few English exams. There were many papers, but no essay questions or where did the title for Of Mice and Men come from? I liked that, partially because I just love writing in general, but also because it wasn’t about the memorization of facts, it was about discussing them.

It makes me smile that there are teachers out there who work so hard to find ways to engage their students. For example, Julie Johnson wrote about how she uses what is popular with her students to teach them! She even had the audacity to apply for (and win, by the way) a grant to use a Nintendo Wii to teach in her classroom. Shocking. Also, brilliant. I wish I was in grades two to five and in her classroom.

Honestly, I wasn’t the best student at that age. Up until high school, an A was a rare occurrence. I never did my homework. I didn’t see the point of studying for tests. I didn’t listen in class (I didn’t afterward so much either, but I did try a little harder : ). And do you know what my favorite classes were? The ones were we got to talk about things I actually knew. In twelfth grade, my teacher had us write a paper on similarities between Hamlet and…Seinfeld. Loved it.

Teaching is a tricky business, of that I have no doubt. I can’t imagine how hard it is to ignite passion in those who don’t give a damn about reading, grammar, math and science. But I like Julie’s style and I think she has some great ideas. They certainly remind me of happy memories. I know there is a time and a place for empirical study, the Socratic method, and even wordy lectures. But primary school isn’t one of them.

The Substitute

Today, I’m giving props to substitute teachers. Why? No particular reason. I just think they deserve some recognition. I remember the feeling that would rise through the class when we had a substitute, a kind of joy even if a good teacher was out. Because a sub is someone new, someone different, someone who might let you get away with throwing a balloon around class (or might not!).

You have to admit, they have a tough job. They go in to a class usually not knowing what to expect, have to follow someone else’s lesson plan. Unless it was an unplanned absence, in which case they have to wing it. And part of the skill in running a classroom is having a connection with the students. These teachers go in with nothing. They have to be tough and they have to be adaptable.

In my never-ending quest to relate all things back to the Simpsons, we can look at the nineteenth episode of season two, “Lisa’s Substitute,” where Mr. Bergstrom (voiced by Dustin Hoffman, credited as ‘Sam Etic’—really) says “…it’s the life of the substitute teacher. He’s a fraud. Today he might be wearing gym shorts, tomorrow he’s speaking French, or, or, pretending to know how to run a band saw or God knows what.” While they aren’t really frauds : ), the sentiment is correct. They are there one day, gone the next, which is really hard when you come across one that you really like.

One substitute I remember in particular is Mr. Harper. He was a good teacher and an all-around nice guy, a hell of a lot better than the sixth grade English teacher he was subbing for in both counts. Most important, he was someone who listened when you talked to him, not just heard what you said. Whenever anyone heard he was subbing for their class, they didn’t just get excited the teacher was gone. They got excited that Mr. Harper was there. 

To all the substitute teachers out there: someone, maybe a student who prefers to stay quiet in the back of the classroom instead of jump into the discussion, does remember you. Maybe for just one day, you made them think of something in a different way, you made them feel at ease when they usually just felt awkward. Thank you.