The Worst Teacher Ever...

During yesterday's district-wide convocation, the keynote speaker Clay Parker stressed the relationship between teacher interest and student success. Now this isn't ground-breaking theory, but it does express an idea best repeated on a regular basis.

As his presentation ended, I made my way across the rows - a salmon swimming against the tide of teachers rushing headlong to the parking lot - to one of my own high school teachers, one who embodied the qualities which Mr. Parker had described. I thought that she might want to know the impact her interest and enthusiasm had on my attitude toward learning. I didn't love Government and Economics, but I felt compelled to meet her high expectations. I didn't necessarily relish the hard work she assigned, but I felt a great satisfaction in succeeding in "Killer Miller's" courses.

There were two others teachers, now long-retired, that I wished were there as well: Minerva Upchurch and Mildred Bowries. It was Mrs. Upchurch's gentle ways and friendly honk and wave each time she drove down my street that won my affections and untimately my respect and willingness to achieve. Mrs. Bowries - she spoke my language! She combined literature with real life and made me feel the plight of Hester Prynne, still one of my favorite heroines in all of literature.

Those three names and faces stand out against all the others that Spring Branch ISD offered during my twelve years there. Human, compassionate, humorous, energetic, and enthusiastic, I would have died rather than disappoint any one of them and indeed felt a failing when I did.

I should add, though, that I had a alarmingly high number of ambivalent and disinterested teachers, too. I can think of two in particular whose character alone stymied any growth on my part: one, a five-foot chemistry teacher who wielded anger and cynicism as effectively as any weapon; the other, a dance instructor who belittled and beleaguered her students to the degree that her own program was left abandoned. Their collective cruelty stands out in harsh juxtaposition against other fading memories of twenty years ago.

Fortunately, my own students will have better teachers than I did. Looking around the crowded colliseum, I see teachers with whom I am proud to work, teachers I would choose for my own children.

I don't mean to be too maudlin, sentimental, or romantic in my depiction of teachers. I know there were those who rolled their eyes during Mr. Parker's presentation, those who said "I don't want to be my students' friend. I just want to teach and go home."

Well, I'll brush over the gross misinterpretation of interest as "friendship" and ask instead, "Really? Just transmitting the facts of French, Calculus, English, World History - whatever you teach - is enough? You could teach any audience - it matters not who they are? You don't care whether your audience is interested, engaged, and successful? Is it really just about you and getting the job done?"

Allow me to qualify for a moment: I do empathize with that kind of thinking. As teachers, we spend so many hours preparing, grading, in meetings, inservices, etc., that it would be nice to say "I am doing this much and no more." But let's try to keep our students in that list of things that we are willing to care about, shall we? Let's cut out something else, like bulletin boards, or one more worksheet, or whatever we spend our time on instead.

Mr. Parker suggested that we are all teachers because of one or two great teachers in our own lives. We live to model their actions and attitudes. But, I think we also work against the specters of those bad teachers - those who did anything but inspired.

I'm not here to teacher bash or to suggest that I am as good as or conversely any better than those mentioned above; instead I use Mr. Parker's comments as a cautionary tale of what I could become. Of what any of us could become.

Although I hate cliched expression and would accuse my own students of going for the Miss America/Chicken Soup for the Teacher's Soul conclusion, I will adopt one this time: When your students look back on their years of education, how will you be remembered? They will remember, you know. I did. You did. They will...