Posted on 09/09/2001 8:35:52 AM PDT by GRRRRR
Two things: If you haven't seen "Pay if Forward" with Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and "I see dead people" HaleyJoel Osment, go rent it. Second, if you haven't thought about a teacher that made a difference in your life, think about one. I guess I'm an old softy when I think about three or four teachers that I was lucky enough to have had in school. I've been out of University since '79 so you can do the math and the NEA back THEN isn't like it is today. Teachers were to be respected and obeyed. Mr. Bart Eiduke, from Pennsylvania, helped me realize that I could do anything. As a typical seventh grader, I was aloof, got into trouble and didn't work hard enough. I was too worried about finding a "Schlitz" beer emblem for my jean jacket and was too obsessed with girls to care about social studies and math. After a particularly nasty grade report, my Dad was summoned for a conference and I was sat down and read the riot act by Mr. Eiduke. He said I was so bright and intelligent that I could do anything in the world that I set my mind to. No one had ever said that to me, about me. My father always just believed it, but never TOLD me...so, Mr. Eiduke thanks for that. I cleaned up my act in eighth grade and began my freshman year in high school. This is where I met Mr. John Siler my first "real" science teacher. He always wore a shiney suit and thin tie. With his round glasses and slight demeanor, he turned me on to the wonders of chemistry. Even though I later learned to HATE chemistry, he let me manage the little laboratory of chemicals stored in the back of the science lab. I had to come in to school early once a week and prepare little packets of chemicals for all the lab experiments. The wonders of cupric sulfate and magnesium soon came to me and things were never the same in my mind. I was lucky enough to have him as a teacher for my full four years of high school for all my science classes. He taught us physics and how to use a slide rule...no calculators had been invented just yet. When my wife and I were going through Pre-Cana, a pre-marriage class for Catholics, guess who we had as our counselor for the day? Yes, Mr. Siler, still teaching children. Thanks. Senior year in high school put us in front of Mrs. Haze Dwyer Fish. Mrs. Fish was going to lecture us in an English course for two full terms. The kicker here was that Mrs. Fish was going to teach it like a "REAL" college course. As a murmer wound about the classroom, she explained that we would have homework every night. All homework was to be typed and turned in every day. Heck, I hadn't really done "homework" for the past three years thanks to study hall! A true shock to our collective system came with mid term grades, many of us got C's and D's for the first time in our lives. Month's later, when we received A's they truly meant something. Mrs. Fish believed in giving us he SHOCK that we needed to enter college, where we were going to face brutal competition. Believe me when I say it, her lessons still hang with me today. Mrs. Fish became a friend to all of us and better still, a Teacher of all things important the use of words. When I entered Wittenberg University, I had a wonderful set of tools to embark on a course of study to become a veterinarian. I had self confidence that others soon told me was cockiness and arrogance, brilliance of mind that others saw as conceit and a total lack of social skills that couldn't get me in with the "popular kids". What a blow to a guy that had been at the top of his game a few short months earlier! My classes were going to crap, I was taking some elective classes reserved for Juniors because I had tested out to that level and Man oh Man...I was in way over my head. In my chosen major, Biology, I was lucky enough to meet Dr. Horton Halcomb Hobbs III. Yes, that is his correct moniker. You can check out the archives of the Smithsonian Institution where his father was a curator. Dr. Hobbs III taught a brand new course of study, Limnology, the study of freshwater lakes and streams. I thought it would be good to take the entry level course my sophomore year. As the term unwound, I was introduced to the wonders of the lifecycle of the Caddisfly, inversion layers, thermoclines and the joy of afternoon labs mucking around in the mud of nearby creeks. Dr. Hobbs treated us all like PhD candidates, pushing us to the limits of our abilities. I was getting some decent grades, C's and B's but the elusive "A" was yet to present itself on my list of grades. My whole life turned upside down over Christmas Vacation 1977. Our entire Limnology Class was going to the Bahamas for "Field Studies". We had to learn how to SCUBA dive if we were going and ten days at the Archie Forfar Field Station on Andros Island was going to be the most intense time of study for all of us. Our little band of students was gathering at the Cincinnati airport for our flight to Fort Lauderdale. The weather was bad and the ancient chartered DC3 was not going anywhere, anytime soon. Dr. Hobbs had no choice but to take all 16 or so of us back to his house for two days--those two days being Thanksgiving Thursday and Friday--sixteen college kids. Just imagine the face of Mrs. Dr. Hobbs III when we showed up. We got to know each other as people more than students during that entire trip. We eventually made it to Andros, we had our classes, worked in teams to complete assignments, critical things like DINNER menus and cooking etc was all up to us. Dr. Hobbs saw the strengths and weaknesses in all of us during that trip and over the next three years, as I took every course of his that he taught as he honed each of us into the people we are today. He let me be a leader and make the mistakes that leaders make and provided good followers for me to lead. I was a Junior when a huge exam was presented to us. For three hours we toiled with graphs and data tables presented to us as a "typical" lake. We had to describe the physiology of the lake and all it's inhabitants and back up our analysis with data. It was a brutal exam. I won my first college "A" on that exam. I was astounded when I saw the bright red "A" mark on the front of my paper with only a red swoosh underline here or there on the remaining pages...sheer joy came out as I thanked him for my grade. He only said one thing, "Don't thank me, YOU EARNED IT". As I watched that silly movie the other night, all these people came flooding back into my mind. The actors had widened the funnel of my memory and allowed all these things to come back. The horrors of organic chemistry and calculus mingled with the joys of sleeping in the snow covered hills of Ohio and caving in southern Indiana all came flooding back. Those people who seek to teach actually become immortal. They will live on in the minds of their students forever, the lessons of school and life will be passed on the children of their students and so forth. A teacher changes lives forever--some for the bad (algebra ugh!) but mostly for the good. Be sure to thank a real teacher when you have a chance. Hugs to ALL, GRRRRRight Again
Return to sender.
I like "The Man Without a Face," the Mel Gibson movie, not the Jack Vance SF novel.
--Boris
My grandfather.
I dunno, it's been so long since I watched it. Did Mel get exonerated in the end, or did the movie leave you hanging on that one?
Gibson's character was accused, basically by innuendo and lies, and was portrayed as innocent throughout the movie--and exonerated at the end.
--Boris
...There was Sister St. Matthew who caught me with a can of Skoal at St. Bernard's elementary school. I received a steel ruler across the knuckles...edgewise. I learned that there are consequences for breaking rules.
...There was Mr. Wood, Trig and Geometry. A Steve Martin look-a-like, who was passionate about his job. For me, he embodied the line from Desiderata, "Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time."
...Mr. Behr, Vietnam vet, SOG/ Ranger, wrestling coach and high school history teacher. Also, one of my personal heroes. As I planned my life beyond school I spoke with him a lot. When I came home after airborne school, I remember driving to his house to make sure I could show him my bloodwing bruises before they healed. As moronic as that sounds in retrospect, he's the kind of guy who you would go out of your way to seek his approval because it meant so much.
...My sister, a special ed teacher. Conservative extremist, Abortion clinic demonstrator, Right to Life Marcher, and crazed activist for all the right causes.
Dr. Bruce Bugbee: Lt Cdr, USN, Ret. History prof, now deceased. Gave the address at my commissioning on the Gettysburg Battlefield. Friend. Patriot.
Most of the others are/were dirt bags...
It started off quite simply; Miss Gray (1st) inspired in me a love of reading; Miss McAfee (2nd) inspired a love of art; Miss Sanders (3rd) inspired a love of math... and so on.
Then 6th grade was a real eye opener. Mr. Hardaway specialized in history, but he taught me the responsibility of leadership. Mrs. Pittard in 8th taught a civic awareness and pride in country.
These last two had nothing to do with the text books. It was their lives and profound convictions which took every day classroom scenarios and made them training grounds for citizenship.
L---h, the physics prof at the same jr college-- algebra-based phys, as opposed to calculus-based, but this man impressed the hell outta me. The one-man physics department who built all his own lab experiment setups by scratch, meticulously put together lectures (with many a reference to quote-unquote "girly shows", for some odd reason, haha)... I still remember that Doppler frequency shift experiment where we hurtled down the highway with an old contraband police siren blaring out the window past a tape recorder...
C-----w, at one of the state schools I transferred to-- brilliant man. He could manhandle the hell outta a quantum mechanics equation and we swore he was God incarnate. C------n, who taught me electrodynamics, who was the only prof I ever heard cuss at the blackboard on a regular basis-- I'm doing my doctoral thesis research for him now. E------e, nicest old codger you'd ever wanna meet-- got many a relaxing nap in his thermodynamics lectures.
Wasn't all physics though-- that old English prof I had who told me I should be at Harvard... (Never quite made it, but oh well...) Got an A out of that old perv, too. D-----s, the physical chem prof, living proof that there are actually guys out there who are more screwed up than I am... M----n, that young dude from CA who actually made linguistics class worth staying awake for...
It's been fun. Don't know whatever happened to some of 'em-- I've been in and out of so many classrooms it ain't funny... I'll never forget them though. Everyone you meet makes some kind of impression on your life. Good, bad, deep, ephemeral, somehow someway...
Freeny had taught most of the other teachers in the school. He was an ex- Merchant Marine sailor, tatooed to match the stereotype. His hands were enormous and strong.
He regularly reduced girls to tears with verbal abuse. Whenever he gave a quiz, he would stroll around and look over your shoulder. If you were getting an answer wrong, he would put one of those hands on the back of your neck and squeeze until you got it right. (He never touched girls, only boys). Today he would go to jail for berating the girls for "stupidity" or for "unwanted touching" of the boys.
I loved the old man. We became friends and my respect and admiration grew. Whenever I came home from college, I would visit him--the only teacher I ever thought to visit. And I told him that he was the strongest cause of my academic and professional success: "You taught me the analytical frame of mind," I once told him.
Later, I was privileged to take Aerospace Propulsion from Dennis Shepherd (a disciple of Frank Whittle), and felt about him the way I felt about Mr. Freeney.
Those are the only two, and may their souls rest in peace.
--Boris
Yeah I guess I never really got in on that. The pocket-protector crowd is usually more interested in gunning the grade curve than in developing any sort of character or something...
I guess if there's one thing I've picked up on from these guys, it's tenacity. And the importance of having a colorful vocabulary when you accidentally cross voltage source leads. There's some moral fiber for ya, haha...
The second best teacher was a brilliant but mean SOB. Students half believed the rumor that mirrors would not reflect his image. What he did was teach me probability theory in such depth that what he taught has never left me and has never failed the test of time.
My favorite and most influential teacher was Frank Scelenge, who taught Jr. High science. An intersting and tough ex-Master Sargeant, he allowed us to do anything in class, including knitting, which was then popular with Jr. Hi girls, as long as we kept up with our classwork. He taught us "how to think." He taught us how to read and dissect our TEXTBOOKS, how to distinguish pertinent facts from extranea, how to do wonderful science projects. He was a wonderful dedicated man and we all loved him, though he shouted and stomped around the room. He had much to do with forming my logical mind, for which I am ever grateful.
I'd also like to mention Sister Marion, my journalism mentor in high school, who had much to do with preparing me for my career. In her 80s now, she's teaching philosophy at Catholic University in Washington. A tough-minded, no-nonsense teacher, she never rapped knuckles, but taught us how to discern fact from fluff. A fine mind! I wish today's idiot journalists had been through her classes!
BTW, can you imagine girls in jr. hi knitting for fun today? Nah, they're too busy putting on makeup, which our parents would not allow until highschool. Of course, we were not blasted with ads for lipstick 24/7 back then. The day teenagers became a "market" for advertisers was a sad day indeed.
"I'd also like to mention Sister Marion, my journalism mentor in high school, who had much to do with preparing me for my career. A tough-minded, no-nonsense teacher, she never rapped knuckles..."
Perhaps a good rap on the knuckles would have taught you to spell, "Sergeant."
#8-)
Famous for her cynical, sarcastic attitute about modern "education," and for delivering lines that should go down in history, such as the following:
"For those of you who don't know any better, the first 'modern' philosopher was NOT Bob Dylan!"
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