Every kid can tell
you who their favorite teacher is… But can they look back and tell you who
their best teacher was? I know; your favorite teacher was the one who fenced toward the movie instead of the text book, the one that left you sleeping, the one that ignored the slip of the tongue, the one that wasn’t afraid to throw markers at you when you were wrong. My favorite teacher was simple but then again I never really took his class.
But who taught you the most? Not who you learned the most from but who really taught you how to learn. These are the teachers who you should cite for your success as these are the best teachers. My best teacher was simple because he let me teach myself.
If you’re lucky they can be one of the same. This isn’t a Tall Tale about a teacher who dedicated their life to teach but one who had to stop; to teach…
For me learning is quite simple as I never had to take a single note through high school or college and if it wasn’t for a restaurant in my college library I wouldn’t have even known where it was. If I was to read a book it was always backwards as I knew the most important thing to know; is what you don’t know. He was a teacher that understood this and would allow me to take the final on the first day of class. As he did things backwards it allowed me to see forward. But what makes him a great teacher isn’t that he helped me understand myself but that he helped the misunderstood to understand.
Teachers are taught how to teach and that is great as the norm follow their logic and structure. But can those teachers teach the kids that don’t want to be taught. A daunting task indeed but you can’t just copy the norm for them to pass. Peer pressure is a powerful thing and especially at the high school level. So how does a teacher teach the un-teachable? He doesn’t; he becomes their friend and even in their most rebellious stage they will do anything for a friend, even learn.
…A Tall Tale would be if I told you there was a teacher that taught all his kids. But what did he teach me?… Because he opted not to take the toll of conforming; he was forced to pursue his dreams, his potential, and it was in that moment that he taught his last student.
I COPY
