I had one of the world’s worst teachers on the planet in high school. This was her Valentine’s Day poem to me.
“Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
Everyone’s passing.
Why aren’t you?”
She read that aloud to the class. She was not being ironic or satirical. She was cranky and mean.
I was 17 then. It’s now 28 years later, and I can get a pretty hearty laugh out of that experience. Fortunately I had more great teachers than stinkwads at the chalkboard.
Dr. Larrick – He taught me Latin in 9th grade. I loved him from the get-go because he never referred to me as “Sanjit’s little sister” like everyone else did. He let me be me and never let me even tiptoe in my older brother’s footsteps. It was liberating indeed. Plus, he was the most enthusiastic teacher I ever had. I learned to love the study of languages from Dr. Larrick. We are in touch still, and I applaud what he does for kids and teachers alike.
Mr. Brodie – He made 10th grade bearable when I was lost in a world I didn’t belong in at boarding school. He listened when I needed to vent. He joked when I needed a laugh. He boosted me up when I needed confidence.
Ms. Smith – She made me adore Jane Austen, if only for a semester. If you really knew me you’d know what an achievement this was. Ms. Smith was a wiz at bridging our modern paradigm with the scenes and time periods of the books we read in her English class.
Ms. Kovatch – Hers is the only math class I ever enjoyed. She never let me cop out saying I was just bad at math. She gave me the nudge I needed to not only get algebra; she made me like it. Years later when I saw her (something like 20 years later), she asked me if I still considered myself bad at math. I admitted that it’s not that I’m bad at it, I just don’t love it as much as I love words.
There were other shining faces along the way. I mean, in 19 years of schooling, I did have some influential folks leave their marks. But the names listed above are the people on whom I reflect when I think about the magnificence of teaching.
And to my sons’ teachers (not naming names here), I bow. They are grace and patience and all sorts of awesome. To them I say THANK YOU. Thank you for teaching my boys how to read, how to converse in Chinese and German, how to paint in watercolor, how to do long division, how to be voracious readers, how to give and take, how to communicate in sign language, how honor differences, how to play piano, how to be a good sport, how to grow a garden, how to open their brains to see past a test and beyond a date. You have given our sons the gift of curiosity and bellowed air into their imaginations.
Thank you, Teachers.