Teachers
My right brain definitely wears the pants in my head.
I cannot remember ever understanding math. Ever enjoying it. Ever having an “a-ha” moment that wasn’t inspired by an answer from the back of the book. Am I just math intolerant or was I just never given the chance?
I have had a few good teachers during my education thus far - and by good teachers, I do not just mean the work was easy and I got an A.
I’m talking about teachers that truly and intensely affected my life. Psychology, English, Journalism - the ones I remember made me want to be a writer; made me want to think about the world around me beyond the superficial.
And then there are those that I dread, whose lectures make me struggle to keep focused while my hand throbs uncontrollably from copying down page after page of notes from a prefabricated, perfectly formulated lecture.
I do not learn anything from them. I memorize a lot of useless dribble, but it never once sinks in why I should care about it, why the material should mean more to me than a decent grade on a test.
Teaching is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated, vital and profound professions in the world. We don’t have enough teachers, and yet, half of the ones we do have want us in and out of that class as quickly as possible, want good grades on tests purely for their own good-graces, want to have as little interaction with their students as possible.
Doesn’t anyone teach the teachers how to teach?
And not only are some of them lackluster, some are, it seems, thriving on a twisted power trip.
I had several teachers in high school - a few in college, too, actually - who got their jollies watching cheeks turn red in embarrassment, from making public any screw-up, unintentional and minute, one of their pupils made.
During an in-class essay once, I referred to a literary character as a “tableau rosa,” meaning a blank slate. Ignoring the fact that I was merely attempting to correctly use a Latin phrase in a high school English class, this devil-spawn of a teacher read my essay aloud, pointing out my misspelling of the phrase, telling her students not to attempt to sound smart if they can’t spell the word right.
Even more, some teachers have the audacity to write into a college newspaper purely to criticize an aspiring journalist, purely to ruin his or her confidence.
I just do not think that is what it is all about.
I guess I am just a dreamer. I know every single professor I come across won’t have the ability to change my life or point me in a new direction. Heck, I don’t even expect them all to teach me something I’ll remember in five years. However, I suppose I just expect them all to try. Just like teachers demand that their students give it their all, we expect the same from the people we’re paying a fortune to learn from.
I want to be asked to think, to discuss, to analyze. I want to be told how to be better, how to be more educated, how to go into a career with confidence.
I don’t want to be made to feel like an idiot for an honest effort. And I definitely don’t want to leave the class armed solely with the ability to write notes at a mile a minute and to ignore throbbing hand muscles.
