the shoulders of giants . . . and not-so-giants (part 4)

High School Teachers (continued)

Mr. P. - Grade 11. Made us write in a journal every day (my first one), introduced us to Walt Whitman and Robert Frost, and made me start liking English again
Brother B. - Grade 11. History teacher who oozed a love for history from every pore in his body. He didn’t make me love history back then, but I think he laid the groundwork. His room was a museum, and he passed out pieces of history to us every day. A's and B's weren't good enough for him. You could earn yourself a "Humdinger" and get like double the points -- then goof off the last 3 or 4 weeks of school. I learned from him what a “learning environment” looked like. He used to say, “A closed book is a useless book”. His room was the only one in school with air-conditioning.
Mr. C. - Grade 11. Latin teacher, from whom I never had the pleasure of taking a class. I had heard of geniuses, but I had never met one until him. He invented a system of hand signals that he used to help his students learn Latin better. He wrote a Christmas letter for everyone once that was twelve pages long, in rhyming couplets. He had written symphonies, carved sculptures, introduced me to the Brahms Requiem, and when the Gulf War started, he was the only person in the whole school who was deeply, deeply affected.

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Mr. S. - Grade 12. Senior English teacher. Taught me how to pass the AP English exam, and made me really like English. He also made me co-editor of the literary magazine, a work I am still proud of. I remember feeling strange when I found out that he spent his summers driving a delivery truck for a local potato chip company. That didn't seem like fitting work for a teacher. (And still doesn't.)
Mr. H. - Grade 12. With him, math started to get kind of interesting, but I still hated it. He showed us a video about Jaime Escalante once, and I wondered how he felt when we watched it. Many of us thought that he should feel ashamed for not being more like Jaime Escalante. Why wasn't he getting us to do that stuff? Now, I think I would feel inspired to show my classes that video.
Brother D. - Grade 12. I’ve heard that most physics teachers are crazy. Brother D. had bright purple pants that he wore about every two weeks. No student ever forgot those. One of my classmates kept track of the purple pants. He was eccentric and brilliant, and he built a hovercraft that he let us ride through the halls. He built his own giant static electricity generator. He made more toys in that classroom than he knew what to do with.

(to be continued . . . )

Posted: Mon - February 2, 2004 at 03:19 PM

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the shoulders of giants . . . and not-so-giants (part 4)

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