Saturday, August 25, 2012
Graph #2
Being a "teacher" at a daycare; no degree, no school that qualifies me to be a teacher at all, makes me think about all of the different kinds of teachers there are. Now, if you told me to describe the worst teacher I ever had in school, I could tick off the names of every teacher I've had and try to decide which one I consider to be the worst. But if you asked to describe my worst life teacher, that would be a whole different story. I consider everyone who has been even a small part of my life to be a teacher. So many people have taught me so many different things. But I can't decide if there was a single teacher that could be considered the worst. Everything you learn in life is important, no matter what it is. How those things are taught to you is a decision made by your teacher. When you teach yourself something, who is anyone else to decide if it's wrong or not? Maybe I am my own worst teacher. Have I taught myself well? I think so. Will somebody else have the same opinion? Maybe, or maybe not. A teacher can be awful; they can yell at you, get you in trouble, accuse you of being stupid, lazy, a slacker, a procrastinator, someone who doesn't really want to learn. When they give you a wheelbarrow full of homework and a detention slip at the end of the day, or ground you and take away your Iphone, you think "Man, if I was a teacher, I wouldn't treat my students like that." Or, "If I ever have a kid, I wouldn't ground them or take away their things." You just made a life decision to be a better person based on what that horrible teacher did to you. Doesn't that make them a good teacher? I've had some incredible teachers, teachers who bore me, and teachers who I wish their car caught on fire so I wouldn't have to see them that day. But in the end, they all taught me something that is valuable to me, and to name someone as the worst teacher would be overlooking those lessons.
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A teacher can be awful; they can yell at you, get you in trouble, accuse you of being stupid, lazy, a slacker, a procrastinator, someone who doesn't really want to learn. When they give you a wheelbarrow full of homework and a detention slip at the end of the day, or ground you and take away your Iphone, you think "Man, if I was a teacher, I wouldn't treat my students like that." Or, "If I ever have a kid, I wouldn't ground them or take away their things."
ReplyDeleteTo me, this is the heart and guts of the piece, the point where we can start imagining and visualizing.
I've had some incredible teachers, teachers who bore me, and teachers who I wish their car caught on fire so I wouldn't have to see them that day.
I like the car fire stuff! That gives us a hint of your personality and is funny in itself.
I certainly see the point you're making about how there are lessons in everything...but I sure wish you had introduced us to the teacher whose car you wanted to catch on fire, so we could understand what that was all about.
One example:
DeleteMy high school Physical Education teacher. One specific incident that I can remember was one day when we were at the tennis courts on our first day of learning tennis. He had us pick up as many tennis balls as we could possibly hold in our arms, and then made us line up single-file. He said however many tennis balls were dropped on the ground while he was giving us directions equaled 5 laps around the tennis courts for everyone. There were 28 tennis balls dropped. Needless to say, we didn't play tennis that day. But he did teach me how to stand very still and hold onto those balls tight. :)
That works very nicely. Examples are the soul of nonfiction writing!
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