I had a teacher, in grade 11, who was teaching a class in social studies, who said " Get a goal and stick to it- finish your education, and lkeep learning, always improve yourself and your situation… if you don’t, your children will work for my children!"
Wow! what a lesson… he made us (forced us) to think about our choices and motivations… He gave hard exams, and most of us hated him… and THEN he dumped the idea if we didn’t do well, our failure would probably be passed onto our children…
It was harsh but it motivated me (and the rest of the class)
back in 1977
any teachers you had say something contriversial that motivated you?
In 1962 we moved to a small town in SW Kansas (mentioned in a prior post). I was in 4th grade. The teacher whose class I was assigned to didn’t want me admitted because she didn’t want to teach “pipeline trash.” It was only the fact that she was about six months pregnant that kept my (pacifist) mother from decking her.
In 1969, my final grade in high school sophomore typing was a D-. I currently type 72 wpm (no errors)
Lastly (I know this is silly), my driver’s ed teacher in 1969, told my mother I’d never get my license. I’ve had a chauffers license for 10 years and haven’t had an accident for nearly 25 years.
My freshman English teacher in high school told me I’d never learn how to write. I now have a bachelor’s and a master’s in communication/journalism, never earning less than an A- in any writing course.
When I got my BA, I dedicated it to her. Her words stuck with me and forced me to work to keep them from becoming self-fulfilled prophecy.
I don’t know if it was smart of her or she was just a royal bitch, but I had a Spanish professor who made me bust my ass to impress her. I had taken a nearly two year hiatus from college and Spanish speaking, and when I returned to school my skills were a bit rusty at best. She was from Spain on a Fullbright fellowship, and for some ungodly reason I signed up for two Spanish history classes with her. In addition to being difficult to understand, she also had a syllabus that she paid little regard to so it was nearly impossible to figure out what her expectations were for the following class.
Because I was having such a hard time readjusting and understanding her accent, I requested a meeting with her for a little direction and to better understand her syllabus. She actually told me she wasn’t sure I could pass the class and asked, in very poor English, ‘‘Have you ever taken a Spanish class before?’’ I’ve um, taken them since 7th grade, and had passed a proficiency exam 5 years earlier and since taken at least 10 Spanish lit classes, so as you can imagine, ouuuch. Then she said, ‘‘I’m sorry, my English is almost as bad as your Spanish.’’ Double oouuch. Then she told me to participate more without giving any real insight into her syllabus.
But she did that to other students too, correcting their accents if they had a Latin American flavor and responding to them in class with comments like, ‘‘Let me see if I can respond to that poorly worded question.’’
But damned if I wasn’t determined to prove her wrong about me. I busted my ass in that class, and came bearing the most nuanced questions I could, and even though I was really afraid to do it (I’m quite insecure about my Spanish speaking ability as it is) I made myself speak up in class, to the point that people started viewing me as an overachiever… and well, to make a long story short, I got an A+ in one course and an A- in the other.
It’s the first time I’ve ever had a very critical teacher, and I was surprised at how much it improved me as a human being. So I hate her in a sort of loving and nostalgic way now.
I tell my students that someday they are going to have to write their parent’s eulogy. and that when they do they won’t have time to run out and take my class, so they better learn how to write well now.
It seems to motivate them better than the standard “English class helps you interview for a job” type spiel.
First day of FORTRAN I, our professor looked out at the overstuffed class and said something like “Look at all these bright, eager faces! Half of you won’t be here at midterms.”
I started thinking holy shit, I’m in BIG trouble. I hadn’t been in school for over seven years; I’d quit a good job to go to college, and now this guy’s telling me even the smart kids straight out of high school aren’t gonna cut the mustard!? Damn, damn, damn…I’ve made some big mistakes in my life, but this might be a winner. I mean, when this guy would explain stuff in class, he’d turn from the board and ask me, “3acres, did you get that? Ok, if 3acres understood, everyone did.” He was my advisor, too. A hard-ass professor, but a great guy and loads of fun.
Anyway, I worked hard. Really hard. I had thrown away too much to go to college, and I wasn’t going to give up. And I got an A in that class and in all but two of my other classes and got a degree in math, magna cum laude. All this from a guy who once had a good friend say, “I didn’t even know you had a brain in your head.”
In 1978, my 7th grade homeroom/science teacher was the one who led us in the pledge of allegiance. Or rather, he is the one who on the first day of school asked each of us to think about the pledge critically and then decide for ourselves whether we wanted to pledge as individuals…he basically gave us permission to not be sheep that year. Several of us took the opportunity to learn more about the pledge, and that led me to start critically thinking about other things where authority told me to just do something. Man, I loved that guy*.
*but not enough to be able to pull his name out of my memory and send him a thank you card, which sucks.
Same year of school, 11th grade:
AP Biology teacher told me I asked too many stupid questions. I never voluntarily took a science class again.
English teacher wrote in the margins of my first paper: “Your intelligence shows through in spite of your writing.” I worked harder than I ever had and was intensely proud of the B I eventually got in her class.
And as I teacher, I always told my students “If it’s not hard, it’s not worth doing.” and “Answering questions is not in my job description. ASKING questions is.”
In grade eight, I was complaining about having a writer’s bump on my right hand’s middle finger.* My teacher told me I should keep it. (As in, keep writing.)
I have, and I thank him for it. I still have a bit of a writer’s bump to this day, despite being hooked on typing my words.
*Remember when writing was actual writing, with pen and paper? I do!
In eight grade my earth science teacher told me that I was a waste of space.
I once called out a wrong answer and he told me that from now that if I didn’t know the answer that I should shut up.
I barely passed that class.
In High School I just coasted along, never really thinking that I was smart.
In my first semester of college one of my teachers called me up after class after I was the only one who got an A on a surprise quiz. She said she was impressed and asked what I read during my spare time. I told her, and she told me to ditch “Nintendo Power” ( :smack: ) and get a subscription to “The New Yorker” and “The Economist.” She also told me to read “Shot in the Heart” by Mikal Gilmore, and “Master of the Senate” by Robert A. Caro.
It was her opinion that people who didn’t read good material were seriously wasting their potential. Since she was nice enough to think I had potential, I took her advice and started reading.
She also asked me why I was laughing at her advice (I was sort of smirking.) I didn’t tell her then, but it was the first time that anyone besides my mom told me that I had the potential to do good in school.
I worked hard through college and got a GPA of 3.6 overall. I’m going to start law school in August.
“Heartbreak is good for you. Good for the circulation. But you don’t need that at your age.”
Said by my fiftysomething Shakespeare prof, after my boyfriend had dumped me just when I was waist deep in grad school applications. The prof in question had been married and divorced five times, so I guess he would know.
It was oddly comforting once you filtered out the sheer weirdness of it.
I knew a teacher who would talk about the usual “Work hard to get a good job” type of stuff. Occasionally a kid would hint that he had better ways of making money (i.e. selling drugs).
The teacher would just say, “That’ll work for a short while. But you’ll be dead or in jail within ten years. I’ve known dozens of guys who had that same idea. None of them thought they’d get caught or have any problems with it. They’re all dead or in jail now.”
It was really the way he said it. He was just so matter of fact, like saying, “I had a cheeseburger for lunch.” He wasn’t trying to persuade them or anything…it was just a demonstrable truth and his delivery was perfect. Talk about a reverse smackdown!
Quote:
Originally Posted by phil417
Yep. Several instances:
In 1962 we moved to a small town in SW Kansas (mentioned in a prior post). I was in 4th grade. The teacher whose class I was assigned to didn’t want me admitted because she didn’t want to teach “pipeline trash.” It was only the fact that she was about six months pregnant that kept my (pacifist) mother from decking her.
In 1969, my final grade in high school sophomore typing was a D-. I currently type 72 wpm (no errors)
Lastly (I know this is silly), my driver’s ed teacher in 1969, told my mother I’d never get my license. I’ve had a chauffers license for 10 years and haven’t had an accident for nearly 25 years.
Love, Phil
What’s pipeline trash? Families associated with gas/oil pipelines?
Short Answer: “Pipeline trash” referred to families who worked for an oil refining company – in my step-dad’s case, Cities Service Petroleum, Inc. (later Citgo). Despite the fact that at the time my s-d had been with the company for over 12 years, we were considered low end of the social ladder because it was not unusual to move to different plants/job sites throughout the course of one’s work history. I think that “pipeline trash” was just a prejorative a small-town elementary school teacher used to explain that she really didn’t want to handle an additional student.
Of course, two years later, my sixth-grade science teacher insisted that I was cheating on homework & tests because, “girls can’t do science…all they can be is housewives & mothers.” Silly me, I thought science was fun & interesting until he decided to only teach boys. As I remember, it also made the boys in my class angry because it screwed with the grade curve. Of course, this was small-town (pop. 1100) Kansas, circa 1967.
My daughters are smarter…one’s teaching “Science Camp” for her local school system this summer & the other’s a math whiz.
I took one semester of typing in the tenth grade (back in the dinosaur days of Royal manual or IBM Selectric machines). This particular class was geared toward the college prep students. Our teacher, Miss Ruble, told us that we would probably not ever use what we used in her class once our last college term paper was finished.
Don’t think she ever saw the widespread use of PCs coming.
I have a subversion story to tell. The opposite of most of these comments.
I was in 8th grade, and our junior high had a series of ‘enrichment’ classes - it was a different class every six weeks, thus there was no semester grade aggregated, and it had no effect on your permanent record.
I was studying for the West Virginia Golden Horseshoe exam. For those unfamiliar, it’s a prestigious honor awarded by the state to kids with uncommonly high scores on a comprehensive exam pertaining to WV History. The study sessions for the exam were once per week, and caused me to miss one day of ‘Enrichment’ per week, with the school’s approval.
The enrichment class for that particular Six-Weeks was Speech. I didn’t care for it, and was happy to miss it to work on the Golden Horseshoe stuff. Well, the Speech teacher decided to be a bitch - and there’s no other way I can put it. She decided that she would not permit me to make up the work missed while studying for the exam. (Wasn’t asking for a free pass, just wanted a chance to make up the work - but no dice.) The principal and my parents tried to persuade her, but she refused to budge - so I ended up with a D in that six weeks - but it didn’t affect my longterm GPA, so it mattered little.
Well, I won a Golden Horseshoe, I ultimately graduated high school with a higher than 4.0 average, etc. Went on to college, got my degree, consistently overachieving, etc etc.
So, my mom runs into that teacher from ‘Speech’ a few years ago. And the teacher starts crowing about how her ‘tough stand’ with me obviously inspired my later success.
In reality, it inspired nothing but my contempt. Thanks for nothing.
Not a teacher, and not about me, but it seems in the spirit of the thread: When Dweezil was first being diagnosed with autism, about his third birthday, I took him to a neurologist as part of the whole process.
The neuro had the bedside manner of Attila the Hun with a bad case of hemorrhoids (from conversations with other parents in the months afterward, this was a common opinion). I remember numbly asking him “Will Dweezil ever graduate from high school?”.
His answer, actually rather mild given the rest of his attitude, “Well, fewer than a third do. We can just hope he’s one of the third”.
I am very much fantasizing about shoving my son’s high school diploma under the guy’s nose in 4 or 5 years. I am DETERMINED that my son will get an education and get that diploma, just so I can say “TOLDJA SO!”.
) was a dirty bird!”