Teachers -

All of us have had teachers that have made an impact in our lives. Now that impact isn’t always good. I’ve had teachers that have failed at what they tried to teach me – but in the process taught me valuable lessons. One Sunday school teacher jumped up on his chair and yelled at us, something about going to hell. Now that might be true, but it wasn’t for what we were doing in class. One of the students stood on his chair and told him he was teaching false doctrine. Another Sunday school teacher, after a stirring music practice as a congregation, was failing miserably in class as we were singing the answers to his questions. Instead of getting mad he started to sing the questions. I don’t remember the topic we were discussing but I remember we thought he was pretty cool. Sometimes what you have planned just isn’t going to work, that doesn’t mean you’ve stopped teaching. One teacher that taught me something I wasn’t planning on learning also happened to be my football and baseball coach. He wasn’t that great of a coach, thus the reason he was fired. Now firing the football coach after the end of the season doesn’t eliminate him as a teacher for the rest of the year. He wasn’t to happy about being fired as the coach and it affected the way he taught history. As I mentioned he also was the baseball coach, which he was better at than football. I was in his history class and at the end of the third quarter I asked him what my grade would be. He said I deserved a “D” – that wasn’t true I had done a lot better than that; I had never received a “D” in my life. After a couple of minutes of arguing we came to an agreement. Later that day was the first baseball game of the season and if I hit a homerun I would get an “A” – triple a “B” – double a “C” and if I only got a single I would get the “D.” He never said what would happen if I went hitless, I guess it never really crossed my mind. Our game was against Morgan High School, when we got to the school I instantly noticed a couple of things that were to my advantage: first – there were no fences, this meant a good line drive could go for ever, second – left field was slightly downhill, third – as I watched the pitcher warming up he couldn’t throw a decent curveball. I was a pretty good fastball hitter, but a good curveball got me every time. It didn’t take long for me to fret or feel pressure, as in the first inning I hit a doozey. As it went over the left fielders head I turned on the steam – I was rounding third before he got to the ball. As I headed for home I raised me hands and started to yell, “I get an A, I get an A. There was only one other person that knew what I was talking about. To his credit or fault he gave me the “A.” In hindsight it’s a good story, but not a grade that I deserved or an action that was appropriate for a teacher. Another teacher that did something that would look inappropriate actually had a positive effect. The same year as my baseball experience I had a class that was released time and had no effect on my high school requirements. Because it didn’t really matter what grade I got, I didn’t send time studying, which was quite obvious. During one of our test the teacher walked by and said maybe this will help and put the answer sheet on my desk. It took me by surprise and made me feel a little guilty. After that I actually study for the next few tests. At the end of the year he went around the class and said something about each person, the comments were sincere and positive. He predicted that I would be the one that would change the most in the next few years and talked about some of my qualities that weren’t so obvious. He made an impact on my life. Some of the great teachers see past the present and try to help their student reach their full potential. I had another released time experience where the instructor would always ask me what was going on in my life and joke about what I was doing. He knew I loved sports and would tell me I would only score as many points in basketball as I scored on his quizzes. Because I liked him and his class I started studying to do better on the quizzes. Some classes don’t give the teacher a lot of leeway on how the subject can be taught – but all teachers can show concern and appreciation for those they teach. And it can change their life.