Thanks To The Teachers
My grand daughter asked me if I had a favorite teacher who impacted my life more than any of the others. That is a tough question for me. I was a good student and probably most of my teachers liked having me in their class … at least they should have! Even my two least favorite teachers had an impact on me:
One of them was an old Literature teacher who had the biggest nose I’d ever seen, as well as a bad sinus/nasal problem that made it extremely hard to understand him … plus he spoke in monotone. He droned on and on, day after day … right after lunch … and it was impossible to learn and stay awake. Not only that he never cracked a joke, or a smile … he just talked … endlessly talked. I don’t know why, but when he gave us a test it was always oral … and if it could get any worse than taking an oral test from someone you can’t understand, he seemed to get a kick out of pre-recording them on a reel to reel tape recorder. He would sit on the corner of his desk with this portable tape recorder in his hands (can you imagine what kind of speakers it had 45 years ago?) and turn it on and off and on and off, giving us whatever time he felt we needed to write down the answer to his pre-recorded question. He got furious if we asked him to repeat the question, and instead of simply repeating it to us live, he would rewind the tape and play it over. He always wondered why no one did real well on his tests, but luckily he graded on the curve.
The other one I didn’t like taught Geometry. (I hated geometry). This old guy oggled the girls and always called 2 or 3 of us up to the front of the class to work out the problems on the blackboard while he stood in the back of the room making lewd comments. No one wore a short skirt to his class unless they thought they were going to flunk. He graded on the curve, too; the more curves the better the grade. I got an A in his class and my highest test score was a C+ … and I don’t remember a thing about geometry.
My favorite subjects were English and Speecy/Drama, so it’s no wonder those two were probably my favorite teachers.
I had the same English teacher for 5 years in a row. He was considered “strict” but my friend and I figured out early on what he expected from his students and it was the easiest A’s we ever got. We might have just been the ”teacher’s pets” because we got along so well with him and most kids didn’t. If it hadn’t been for Donna, though, I may not have done so well. She really got the hang of diagramming sentences and was kind enough to teach it to me and we were soon experts. He also had a chart he required his students to memorize about nouns, verbs, adverbs blah blah blah. We learned that the first year. If you memorized the chart and could diagram sentences for Mr. McAllister you had it made. I remember a poem I wrote for one of his classes. Donna and I had procrastinated and procrastinated and procrastinated and finally he sat us down in the library and told us we couldn’t leave until we had it finished. Mine went like this … and by the way, I did get an “A”
My Pome
I heered I hav to rite a pome, I gess A’ll do it well. There’s one thing I must konker first, That’s learnin how ta spell. My teacher’s locked me in a room, And says I hav ta rite it, So now I gotta do it cuz there aint no point ta fight it. I think A’ve got it long enough, To pass his close inspexshun. I can’t find a single thing to warrant it’s rejexshun. But there is kinda one small thing That I just gotta say, This pome a mine is not complete, Until it has an ”__”,
I loved my Speech/Drama teacher. I had him three years in a row. He a large man with a big gap between his two front teeth and he was VERY dramatic and fun to be around. He loved to tell stories and always had us laughing. He was a strict teacher but it was easy to follow his instructions. His class was in the basement of Jordan High and I was in his class the morning we had the big earthquake that rumbled our three story building for what seemed like forever. (It was the first earthquake I’d ever experienced.) Before the shaking and noise subsided my teacher had run from the front of the class out the back door, up the stairs, partway down the hall, then back down the stairs to pop his head back into the classroom and yell, “Well aren’t you coming”, before we once more heard him running up the stairs. Actually, as I think about Mr. Glen Sacos … he was probably the teacher who had the biggest impact on my life because he interacted with us on a much more personal level and took an interest in what went on in our lives outside of school. I was on the team that took State in Speech and Drama and I the experiences from three years in his classes gave me my confidence in public speaking.
I’d have to say that all of my teachers impacted my life for good, even the ones I didn’t particularly like. It’s good they weren’t all alike, or I wouldn’t have learned to get along with so many different types of personalities. I’m grateful my parents let me know that they were 100% behind my teachers. If I had a run in with a teacher the run in with my parents when I got home would be MUCH more severe. Probably not too many of us give our teachers the thanks they deserve … I wish I could now, but most of them are no longer around. So instead, I’ll just say thank you to the teachers of today … the ones who will help mold my grandchildren. They are a noble profession.
