Glennalicious: Back from break

April 12, 2004

Back from break

I realized something important after a nice person emailed me encouragement- I shouldn't write a summary of education just before the Spring Break.

He/she told me about his/her favorite teacher, the one who made a difference in his/her life. His/her name was Chris, by the way. I don't want to be gender biased so I've included as many pronouns and possessives as possible.

I was lucky, in that there wasn't just one amazing teacher. Ms.West had a mutant sized mole on her face that defined diameter and circumference, but she was the toughest math teacher. She was fair, loved me, and gave up one of her free periods every day to teach me trigonometry. She pushed me to think logically, stretching me further than any other math teacher. She got into a screaming match in the hallway with Ms. Shugart, a nasty vile math teacher from hell, because Ms. Shugart didn't like my sister.

Mr. Patton didn't just teach chemistry. He taught sarcasm, cynicism, and wonder at the same time. He told me to never trust the system, that TANSTAFL was a good philosophy, that spiders could be realistically imitated using pipe cleaners. Every day, he worked in the system, he enthralled group after group of vulnerable minds, and I bet every kid in my class remembers Avogadro's number.

Ms. Worrell made me only write in active voice, would shriek at me for not thinking, and made me write poetry. It was the worst poetry, and she praised me for writing it in active voice. Ms. Sharma refused to teach anyone less than a senior in high school to minimize any possibility of hormones overtaking her class. She introduced me to Siddhartha.

I want to be like them. I don't want to be noble. I HATE the word noble. I want to be effective, I want to see kids graduate to high school, I want to see my kids learn. That's not noble, that's finding the balance between caring for my kids and knowing I can't save every one.

Posted by G at April 12, 2004 08:43 PM

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Comments

I don't want to be noble. I HATE the word noble. I want to be effective . . .

Agreed. Me too.

Posted by: Cohort 6 Fellow at April 13, 2004 10:37 PM