I'm not blowing the "Hurray for teachers!" horn. While I started kindergarten able to read and loving school because my first teacher, my mother, was an excellent one, I had a terrible teacher in 2nd grade that had no business teaching children. I won't name her, but when I look back at that year, I literally can only remember fear and humiliation, and even the colors are somber blue and grey. Screaming and dumping of desks and kneeling in corners and worse. She set me down a path of not taking school seriously, hating much of it, being quietly defiant, and setting me back years in my learning.
HOWEVER...along came a string of talented teachers. Many, in fact, and more than I can name in this post. If you were one of my teachers, and I don't thank you by name, please know I am still deeply grateful for the time and effort you put in for all of us.
After the damage done in 2nd grade, and a string of some great and some not so great teachers afterwards, it was in 7th grade that my rescue truly began.
A teacher who simultaneously was stern and loving, demanding and supportive, took an interest in my writing. Outside of my parents, no one really had. Her name is Julie Foss. She was a veteran, and had taught my parents before me. In a stroke of luck, I had Mrs. Foss for two years in a row. Truly, I look back and know that she was the pivot point in my educational life. It was because of her that I became a student again.
The scaffolding was not there for math, and so I continued to feel inadequate in the subject and would remain behind some of my peers throughout junior and high school. Some math teachers assumed I was lazy, others probably thought me stupid. I remember one instance so clearly...I discovered I finally understood my homework one night. It clicked! I worked for two hours on it, but it was fun! Like solving a long-secret puzzle. I went to class the next day, and the other students were talking about how easy the homework had been, how it had only taken them 20 minutes. And then I learned that I had every problem wrong.
But another teacher came along. Perhaps a bit eccentric, but energetic, and very smart. For the first time, I enjoyed math, and felt I could actually learn it. I also began to care about doing well with the math because I wanted to please the teacher. Mr. Frank Colgan was actually, primarily, a chemistry teacher, but I learned more math from him than I learned from anyone else in my life. Perhaps all the years combined.
I had strong preparation in my English classes throughout high school. In fact, we read more each year than most high school students read in four today. We studied *gasp* grammar in a systematic way, even diagramming sentences. This helped immensely when I went to Monterey to learn a new language in a year-long immersion program. Well, actually, I was bored for a few weeks while foreign nationals had to teach the other Americans in the class the difference between between nominative and accusative cases (I just had to learn the labels, they had to learn the concepts). Still, it was the last high school English teacher I had that marked another turning point. All male teachers wore a coat and tie back then. He would come in, like a reverse Mr. Rogers, in a suit and tie, and remove his high-top leather white sneakers, and slip into his shoes. He once announced the next day would be the first day studying poetry and he brought in Led Zep lyrics to Gallows Pole. I mean, everyone does that sort of thing today, but back then it was unheard of. He was very young, and quiet by nature, but smart and, again, encouraging. If Mrs. Foss made me want to be a student again, it was Mark Kelly who made me want to teach.
I had some growing up to do before starting university, and after my time in the army, I was ready for full-time college work. I found that even six-years removed, the prep I had received at little Madawaska High School was more than adequate. When I took Biology at university, we didn't come close to covering what we had covered in half a year of Mr. Paul German's high school bio class.
There were three professors, among many great ones, whom I'd like to mention here. The first was Dr. Bill Willan, who shocked me at the end of my first semester when he invited me to join an honors class in English for my next semester. There was Prof. Brad Ritz, with whom after I had exhausted every course in economics that the university had to offer, we designed independent study courses so I could continue to learn. I truly regret that I simply ran out of years at college before I could soak up more from Brad. I have 3 semester hours in Brazilian monetary policy. I mean, who has that? I loved it.
And finally, my undergrad mentor, with whom I also took several courses. He was such a different sort of person. A man of huge frame, with a pony-tail. From Brooklyn, but with a PhD from West Virginia. I took a course in Evaluation & Guidance from him that I still refer to almost weekly in my own teaching. If Mrs. Foss made me a student again, and Mark Kelly inspired me to teach, it was Jim Killarney who made me into an intelleweirdo-good-natured-skeptic desperate to learn more psychology, sociology, and philosophy. Foss made me want to work, Kelly made me want to tell, Killarney made me want to ask. When Jim lost his battle with cancer, one he did in his own inimitable way, I was truly saddened. We'd lost another great one.
I had four mentors in grad school, brilliant writers all.. I will briefly mention them all, because they each gave me something I continue to use in the moments I am doing the work I love most- writing. Suzanne Strempek Shea's kindness, expertise, generosity, and journalistic eye helped me center my voice. Richard Hoffman did something that no one had honestly and constructively done for me. He told me that my writing was not up to par. That he expected more and he showed me how to build a pathway to get there. I'm still working on it. James Patrick Kelly was encouraging not only of my writing (and he is a master of plot) but also of my workshopping skills, something I love and get paid to teach at the university level today. Finally, Mike Kimball, the cool one, not that other guy. Novelist and playwright. His humor and insight into the craft of writing has forever changed my work. When I am editing/revising any of my own fiction today, it's his voice I hear in my head.
I'm a teacher and a professor and I am thankful. Not only because these great teachers, and others like them, were able to undo the damage of one horrible person and the self-inflicted damage that came after, but because while underpaid and overworked and probably without knowing it, they saved and inspired one kid who is now doing his best to teach others with an example of how to do it badly and many examples of how to do it incredibly well.
Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment