My senior English teacher encouraged me to write more than anyone else had. When I had my first story published, in Harrington Gay Men's Fiction Quarterly, I sent it to her with a note telling her how much her support had meant to me.
She didn't reply.
The other teacher impacted me in how incredibly awful he was. He inspired me to become a teacher because I knew that kids needed better math teachers than him, they needed someone who could actually understand mathematics. (He also once said, to the class, "students like Eric don't become teachers, because they're too good.") WTF. (Of course, I realized when I tried that I wasn't cut out to be a high school teacher, so now I'm a teacher educator. Was he right? Hmmmm....)
I could have benefited from your teaching. I had awful math teachers in high school. One was an English teacher who taught one section of geometry and the other ... well ... Ugh. I made A's and knew nothing. It impacted me greatly, as I scored highly on the English portions of the SAT and GRE and quite poorly on the math sections. To this day when I see a word problem on a math test, I get anxious:) As you are, my sister is a teacher educator.
My senior English teacher, Mrs. Trahan, pushed me to write more. To this day, I don't think about writing a paper or working on a short story without thinking of her and thanking her for pushing me to enjoy it.
I'm glad you cross-posted this from Face Book. I followed through there, but will mention a couple here. I have benefited, been impacted by several incredible teachers ... So, here goes:
Elementary School Teachers in Duke Center, PA: Rita Sandburg (who also taught here students to square dance!) and Maude Dobner, the first teacher to recognize that I would become a singer. (They've been deceased for a long time.)
High School English teachers: Lucille Bremer, Gail Callelly and Leigh Young. High school History teacher - Cara McBride. There's a reason I got a BA in History and English and excelled. I'm sure all are retired or deceased.
Shirley Black - Professor of History - Texas A&M. A dear friend until her death.
Finally ... Colleen Badders and Caitlin Moore - my sister and niece, who daily inspire their students and other teachers to greater heights, to dream, to succeed.
Thanks, Jim, for bringing the travesty in California to our attention!
I don't know if she was the "best" teacher I ever had, but Mrs Kamiyama was the first teacher I had a crush on (4th grade).
As an undergrad in university, Dr Roth was the most influential. She believed in me, and pushed me to excell, to the point of doubling my case load in the Speach and Hearing Clinc. This was done to deflate the arguement from an associate professor that I couldn't cut it as a clinician. While I only practiced speach therapy for only one year in the real world, I'm told my clinical notes were excellent and were appreciated by the person who succeeded me.
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She didn't reply.
The other teacher impacted me in how incredibly awful he was. He inspired me to become a teacher because I knew that kids needed better math teachers than him, they needed someone who could actually understand mathematics. (He also once said, to the class, "students like Eric don't become teachers, because they're too good.") WTF. (Of course, I realized when I tried that I wasn't cut out to be a high school teacher, so now I'm a teacher educator. Was he right? Hmmmm....)
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Elementary School Teachers in Duke Center, PA: Rita Sandburg (who also taught here students to square dance!) and Maude Dobner, the first teacher to recognize that I would become a singer. (They've been deceased for a long time.)
High School English teachers: Lucille Bremer, Gail Callelly and Leigh Young. High school History teacher - Cara McBride. There's a reason I got a BA in History and English and excelled. I'm sure all are retired or deceased.
Shirley Black - Professor of History - Texas A&M. A dear friend until her death.
Finally ... Colleen Badders and Caitlin Moore - my sister and niece, who daily inspire their students and other teachers to greater heights, to dream, to succeed.
Thanks, Jim, for bringing the travesty in California to our attention!
Reply
As an undergrad in university, Dr Roth was the most influential. She believed in me, and pushed me to excell, to the point of doubling my case load in the Speach and Hearing Clinc. This was done to deflate the arguement from an associate professor that I couldn't cut it as a clinician. While I only practiced speach therapy for only one year in the real world, I'm told my clinical notes were excellent and were appreciated by the person who succeeded me.
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