Teachers
 

What teacher let you see the world differently?

For me it was Mr. Hunnicut. He was my 5th grade teacher. Our classroom was a Quanset hut during the Cold War.

Mr. Hunnicut spent time with Eskimos and told us how they shared resources. It was the first time I ever heard someone say that working as a community can be better than working against each other.

Peace.

Jim "Stack" Stacchiotti, 8th Grade American History teacher. If you ever wonder where I get my distaste for "fairytales"..........it came from Stack. He insisted upon giving us a realistic view of history, rather than the "Litanny of Hogwash", (as he called it) that was our state mandated textbook.

I'll never forget him asking someone;

"Does it disgust you to find out politicians stretch the truth and wheel and deal to make things happen? Sometimes even getting people killed in the process?"

Response; "Yes, it does."

"Then you're a fool. They all wheel and deal. In fact, that is the very nature of politics. Always has been and always will be. I suppose you believe that nonsense about the cherry tree as well?":D

But, what was more important than that was his teaching style. For example, he would hand you a situation and ask you to tell him how you would handle it. "Mr. Bacon, you are General Gage. And you have just learned that William Prescott has occupied Bunker Hill and set about building fortifications. What do you do? You have 30 minutes to figure it out, go to the map and give me your answer."

It was awesome. He didn't just make you read and recite history, he made you sorta live it. You had to become the charactor, walk in his shoes and think about the situation.

Dave

Miss Moore, 10th grade homeroom and English teacher, started me on the road to classical music - never looked back.

Mr. Bridgwater, Chemistry 1 and 2 in high school. He helped us find out that learning does not have to be a stifling environment. We learned the period tables and Avogadro's number, and how to use a Bunsen burner, but I also remember playing ELP's Pictures at an Exhibition during lab.

Regards,

D-Ray

Craig Sturdevant, Sociology I, LU.

First day of class, he lectured on the supplies which were delivered to a natural disaster, to the best of my recollection, they included 5,000 sets of falsies.

Then he brought in his buddy, who just sat there and said nothing. The class went ape shit, they didn't know how to deal with someone like that...it was out of their realm of experience.

The vast majority attacked him, asking why he was just sitting there and not responding. And I imagine that the vast majority never made the connection that is was none of their concern if he wanted to just set their and say nothing.

They didn't understand that the problem was theirs, and not the instructor who didn't behave as they were accustomed to.

The point being is to ask yourself as to what your motivation is before confronting someone else who is doing no more than existing.

Look inward before you look outward, or at least that's the lesson I picked up.

Chas

Or, maybe the guy just got his jollies driving the class crazy?

I can respect that too.

Dave

Ms. Pare, 3rd Grade math teacher. My first student-teacher crush. :)

Mr. Warrick Hill, my pre-calculus teacher in 11th grade at Robert E. Peary HS in Rockville, MD. A brilliant man, a great teacher and author. He was an African-American and his brilliance and demeanor helped dispel the false notion of intellectual inferiority among blacks that many may have held at the time.

Mr Turpin, who taught me it's OK to be a HS teacher, and an alcoholic.

Slurpin Turpin. I've emulated him ever since.

Pete

We had one like that, Miss Boucher, the art teacher.

Her replacement was Miss Ray, who proved that you can gain tenure even if you're totally insane. Not to mention a racist.

We didn't have that many black students, but she would lecture the class on the black race while they were present, use the N word, tell about how they would steal everything you owned and murder you in St. Louis.

Now we may be a bunch of peckerwoods, but at least we're civil peckerwoods.

Chas

Sounds like James Earl Ray's sister.

Strange I had a Miss Ray from grades1 through 5 - it was a one room schoolhouse - and although she was strict she was fairness itself.

Ray James and Greg Mills, Public Affairs graduate instructors (Park University, Parkville, MO). I never had anyone particularly memorable teacher until them. Both, in their own way, blew my mind.

1. Selfless.
2. Engaged.
3. Things I'd never considered.

Beyond the wife who divorced me and the job that negatively impacted my psyche (cause and effect if there ever was one), Graduate School was intellectual release and my social crutch for stimulation. Oddly, the best and worst years of my life.

Beyond the degree, I'll always owe those instructors for showing up and making me think. Someday, I'd like to do that for someone else.

Now that you mention it, James Earl Ray was the latest escapee from the Missouri State Penitentiary, at least whenever I worked there. And there were no more escapees right up to the day it closed.

Considering that NOBODY busted out of that place, and considering that the average con is going to get drunk, get laid, and stick up a 7-11 even if they do manage to bust out...

I've always found it suspicious that what HE did was go buy a scoped Remington .06, and then go shoot Martin Luther King.

Personally, I've always figured that he was allowed to escape if not to do the hit, to at least to take the fall.

I may be as wrong as two left feet, but by and large I have a pretty good bullshit detector.

And the official story smells like bullshit to me.

Chas

In the 1960s there were powerful people who believed Dr. King jr. was a Communist agitator tryin' to stir up the "negroes". They had a pretty low opinion of the Kennedys too. Especially the ones who kept getting between Tricky Dick and the Whitehouse.

Dave

I can remember when MLK was shot. I was 14 at the time. I heard it on TV and yelled downstairs to my mother, born in Selma, AL in 1916. Her response? I hope they killed that son of a bitch.:(

Yeah, there's nothing some white folks hate more than an "uppity ni**er", is there?

But, that has absolutely nothing to do with current events, mind you....................:rolleyes:

Dave

You had one of these as well......


My high school physics teacher was Mr Kent. He was a hippy in the late 60's and that stuck with him still to this day. We have America records playing while taking tests or doing labs. Test questions would be similar to "It's 1967 and I'm walking down the on ramp onto Interstate 70 to hitch hike to California, what is the frictional coefficient of the rubber of my shoe sole to........"

The teacher for me was my 5th & 6th grade teacher, Mrs Siemion. She was stern but fair and took no crap. You get out of line and it was out to the hall with the "board of education" She also taught responsibility. When homework was not complete you'd have to stand up in the class and tell her why. Most times the only acceptable answer was "I chose not to do it".

She was an outstanding teacher in every meaning of the word. Still respected by parents and students years later.

I've been trying to come up with a teacher that I respected and was drawing a blank. Then I remembered young Ms. Kaiserling, a math teacher in Jr. High. She would shout and pound her fist on the desk when my classmates would be misbehaving. Rumour had it that she quit and became a stripper.:rolleyes:

Pauls post brought someone to mind.

Mr. Ed Sinchak was my tenth grade art teacher. He too was an old hippie....Well, he was in his 40s at the time, so...."old" to me. Anyhow, Mr. Sinchak often pretended to not know we were smoking weed in the supply room. This was all unwittingly done because it was believed that weed enhanced our artistic abilities.;):cool:

To keep it short, we had an art show that year. When my old man saw the class exhibit, a ten foot tall purple Tyrannosaurus Rex, sporting mirrored shades, gold chains, a fedora with a large green feather and smoking a cigar named "Sweet Daddy T. Rex". He looked me right in the eye and said;

"Let me guess. It's reefer, isn't it?"

Dave

Art class was a blast for me, too. The teach had a standing order for a record player from the library and we could bring anything we wanted to listen to. The first time I heard Blows Against The Empire by Jefferson Starship was in that class.

Read this thread with interest, but sorry all of my teachers had some impact on me. Tried to single out one or two, but then another would come to mind.

A person who decides to teach decides to because of an innate need to give not receive! IMHO! anyway......



Barney

I had some excellent HS teachers, but the ones who really stand out are the exceptional primary school ones. I was lucky enough to be one of the last grades to learn under the 'old' system, God, Country, Personal responsibility (still got paddled).

Nothing wrong with saying the Pledge every morning either.

Pete

Barney one of the great rewards in teaching is after you have explained the subject for the third time - selecting different analogies - you see the light go on in the student's eyes.:)

I agree..............So long as the constitution is respected and religion is left out of it. But, something tells me we're going to listen to misguided wailing about that forever.

Dave

And they use the original version.:)