Back in high school, I had a drafting teacher named Mr. Gennette, but no one ever called him that. We always called him “Sir.” Mr. Gennette was an ex-Marine, and even in his middle fifties still had a body builders physique. We learned in Sir’s class, you did not get an “A” in his class, unless you turned out drawings worthy of a professional draftsman (and this was before the days of AutoCAD, so it was pen and ink). Your drawings had to be clear, exact, and everything labelled correctly. If you wrote a number on the print any other way than how Sir wanted you, you could expect points off your grade. Made that mistake a second time, and you could expect a lot of points off your grade.
I didn’t pursue a career in drafting, but I’ve found the skills Sir drilled into me (and he wasn’t above pounding a little knowledge into a stubborn student’s skull) helpful in the years since. I’ve also discovered, much to my dismay, that most of the draftsmen out there didn’t have a teacher as good as Sir. Few plans or blueprints I’ve seen have been as clear and correct as the ones I was forced to draw in school.
So, anyone else out there have a teacher they wish others had had?
My eight grade drafting teacher was Mr. Blanchard. He had this disgusting ability of spotting measurements to within an eighth of an inch from a distance. He specified two inch long pieces of tape to hold down the corners of our drafts.
From four or five feet away, when you would spool off adhesive tape from the dispenser, he would tell you its length. You learned to stop verifying his called out measurements after the first week in class. He was never wrong.
I wish everyone could have had Midori Kaylor for a science teacher. She was a compassionate and capable instructor who made learning fun and interesting. Just the ticket for a subject that can be dessicated by lesser teachers.
My fifth grade teacher, Miss Lorelei Lacy, taught us a system of rules for spelling. Every time I feel my way through an unfamiliar word, I thank Miss Lacy.
JoAnne Payne, my government teacher in 12th grade. She helped all of us realize that we were citizens and had responsibilities (we were required to volunteer for a political campaign of our choosing during that school year). She was a Kennedy-era liberal and I loved her dearly.
John Accordino, a professor I had in graduate school. He was very well versed in, well, damn near anything. Wisdom just radiated from him and you wanted to learn. He was also a hell of a fun guy.
My Spanish teacher, Mrs. Henckel, was my favorite teacher of all. She made the class fun. We would observe all the Spanish and Mexican holidays and other cultural events by bringing food, having parties, etc. in class. I also got to go to Mexico with her and a few other students from my class for spring break in 1987. I had a great time on this trip. I also got straight A’s throughout the three years I had her as my teacher.
Grade 11 chemistry, Mr. Ihor Deneha. I wasn’t much of a fan of science, but man, that guy could teach. A model for constructing lesson plans; every day was carefully structured to build on the last. Every point followed from the last and led to the first. Every student was involved in the discussion. Every student learned. Terrific class, a model for others to follow.
Grade 9 phys ed, Mr. Sean Murphy. (Do you think he’s Irish?) If you want to know how to teach phys ed, ask Mr. Murphy. No running laps or pick-teams-and-play-some-soccer just to kill time in that class. Every week we learned a specific physical skill. Week 1, here is how you throw a football. Every kid was shown in exacting detail how to throw a football. By week’s end the school’s geekiest kids, nerds of the nerdiest sort, were throwing 30-yard spirals right into the chest. Week 2: How You Punt A Football. Here is how you perform a backwards somersault. Here is how you execute a half nelson. Here is how you kick a soccer ball. Here is how you shoot a free throw. Here is how you swing a baseball bat. Specific, clear direction for specific physical skills. Remarkable stuff. Anyone who hated phys ed in high school would have adored Mr. Murphy. I learned about twenty different sports skills I didn’t have before.
Grade 11 drama, Sean Roberts. Like phys ed but just different skills. There was no “If you were a tree what tree would you be” method acting baloney in Mr. Roberts’s drama class, no sirree. You were there to learn specific skills and techniques, and they were explained in detail, and if you didn’t do them right you kept doing them until you did them right. And they were explained in clear, concise language anyone could understand. And we learned it all.
High school computer programming was a “cutting edge” new course. Taught using punched cards, and an old Teletype machine hooked up to a downtown mainframe via a 300 baud acoustic modem. Remember those? Dial the number, when you hear the modem answer, place the handset of the phone on the acoustic base and the CONNECTED light comes on.
Mr. Schoenberg helped us through the intracacies of BASIC, FORTRAN, and Assembly Language.
Always a helpful hand when you needed it, he even talked administration into cutting us kids some slack when we hacked into the district’s new computerized grades system.
About 2 months ago I had the unique chance to have dinner with Mr. Schoenberg and his wife. In our discussions about the computer programming classes he told me that he was learning more from us than he was teaching us - he just put up a good front.
That is the essence of a good teacher. Teach your students what you know, learn from them what you don’t, and always keep a level head about you.
Robert Lyon was my grade 12 and 13 English teacher (also taught Latin and Greek after school). In addition to this he was the Commanding Officer of the Army Cadet Corps. He possessed one of the most practical intellects I have ever encountered. He strived to make sure we could apply everything we learned. We had to demonstrate the practical side of even the most esoteric philosophical concepts from our reading lists.
He also ingrained a healthy suspicion of arbitrary things. My favourite “Lyonism” went like this:
Student: How long does the essay have to be, sir?
Mr. Lyon: How long do your legs have to be?
<Pause>
Student: Huh?
Mr. Lyon: Your legs have to be long enough to reach the ground; that is to do their job of holding you up. Similarly the essay has to be long enough to explore and resolve your thesis. Now, of course, if you hand in an adequately explored thesis that is below your capability, your mark will reflect your lack of effort.
I loved it – we actually had to THINK!!! No lazy curriculum card punching in his classes!
To this day one of my biggest pet peeves are arbitrary requirements or standards. Any and all such things should exist because they need to exist.
Drs. Bob Horn (now retired) and Peter Suber (http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/hometoc.htm). They taught me what intellectual rigor was. They taught me the difference between dogmatism masquerading as skepticism and real skepticism. They taught me how to recognize a real argument and how to tell if it was merely doctrinaire screed.
Finally, they taught me how simply repeating something over and over, no matter how politically desirable it might be, is not the same thing as actually proving it.
They taught me how to fish, which is better than instilling any single subject.
UH College of Architecture structural instructor David Thaddeus. The best teacher I ever had. He makes the most difficult subject for the Architecture student (a hard major) easy. He is EXTREMELY charismatic. He’s the single most charismatic person I have ever met. He probably remembers EVERY SINGLE name of EVERY SINGLE student he has ever taught. And that is thousands of students. Yes. I do not lie nor do I exaggerate. He knew me by name BEFORE I even met him. I’m walking into the building to go into class and he passes me and say’s “Hi prisoner6655321” (kindof). Woah! How did he do that? Many young Architects in the south probably know David Thaddeus because he teaches the structural refresher course we take to prepare to take our Architectural Registration Exam.
Everyone should take him not not just to learn structures. (Who needs to learn that besides Engineers and Architects?) But everyone should experience what it is like to be taught by a truly great teacher. He is not like your average physics or math teacher. He doesn’t work out an easy problem in class and give you the hard one for homework. He works out the HARD problem in class and gives you a ton of easy ones, and a couple of difficult questions for homework. We didn’t like having to work all night long (literally, not figuratively) on homework but being in college we realized we would need this information. And his problems were fun. He made the homework EASY, but it still took forever. He told us EXACTLY how to do the homework so we just repeated the process over and over again. It took forever and we had to do so much of it that just by repetition welearned it all. And after 5 years I can still do the problems. I can’t say that about physics.
And he also had a great assignment, one of the most fun I’ve ever had. We had to design and build a bridge that had to span, if I remember, 10 feet, without the use of trusses. And we had something like 6 hours to do it. Then as many people as possible would pile on (Including a “guest” weight. A guy who literally weighed several hundreds of pounds.) And we would check the deflection. What fun! And here is the best part. There were two ways to get an A. One was of course to create a superbly designed elegant bridge that held a lot of weight with minimum deflection. Or you would get an A if your bridge FAILED! The reason being the whole class would learn from your mistakes. Needless to say, my team got an A. Guess how? Never seen a fat man jump off a bridge so fast in my life.
Mrs Gail Male (why do so many teachers have bizarre names?), my grade 8 English teacher.
She taught me that “good enough” isn’t. She taught me that it is possible to cut off an adverb’s legs, or to kill it completely.
To this day, it still drives me bonkers to hear someone say “Drive Safe!”
I got a laugh from a theatre full of people when I absolutely had to correct the unconcious(sp?) Argentinian with his, “Never fall in love with a women who sells herself it always ends bad!”
To get back on topic I would have to say my 12th grade AP English literature teacher. She has been teaching for a great many years and has so much life experience to share with her students. She once lived in Italy, worked at the UN, travelled the world, had a daughter, married a Russian who ran away from his country for some sort of political… thing, had multiple cats, Cosette and Michael, could relate everything to sex, but the College Board likes “sensual” not “sexual”. She was absolutely amazing and you learned in that class.
You didn’t have a choice. You learned because she wanted you to learn. She didn’t put up with BS and she ran her classroom like a drill sergeant to accomplish her tasks quickly and efficiently. I learned to write and organize essays at a true college level in that class and I’ll never forget her.
I know that naming a football coach would not normally be taken seriously on SDMB. However, I played for one that was rather out of the ordinary. He never accepted less than the best of our ability and had little use for a quitter. His name was Shirley Majors and I was on his first undefeated team at Sewanee.
Never seen a fat man jump off a bridge so fast in my life.