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She had to carry in the trunk of the car all of the\nnecessary books, handouts, and such that all of her students would need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She loved that job. Ask almost any teacher and one of the\nmajor barriers to their success is classroom size. She always had a classroom\nof one. She really got to know each student and their families. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her own disability (she lost both of her arms in a farming\naccident when she was five) provided hope and encouragement. Students suffering\nwith pain, disability and fear would see a woman with no arms driving a regular\ncar (sometimes even with a manual transmission), carrying heavy cases of books\nand materials, writing, drawing \u2013 doing everything anyone else would do. Beyond\nteaching she was proof that there was light at the end of the tunnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She sure went through a lot of cars driving all over\nMichigan\u2019s rural Van Buren County!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then the state eliminated funding for that program and made it the responsibility of the individual schools. If a student needed at-home teaching, each principal had to find someone to fill the role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mom stayed with the county intermediate school district and\nworked for the vocational school. This was where high school juniors and\nseniors would go to learn a trade or job skill. The programs included courses\nsuch as commercial photography, printing, data processing, construction,\nnursing, etc. Students could graduate high school and immediately move into a\njob. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That role gave my mom another 15 years of different teaching experience: helping students who lacked a particular skill to be successful in their chosen field. For example, if a student had trouble with reading comprehension, my mom would develop a one-on-one curriculum to help them so that they could be successful with their skills training. And because she also had degrees in counseling and personnel management, she helped students to identify jobs that would suit them after graduation and coordinated on-the-job internships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I mention all of this to say that I saw teaching from the\nteacher\u2019s point of view. All of the stories you hear about the amount of time\nand preparation that it takes to teach are true. Hours were spent each week to\nprepare, grade papers, and plan. Teaching, and doing it well, takes so many\nhard and soft skills that are subtly needed, but little appreciated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I saw the rewards of teaching, too. From seeing a struggling student finally \u201cget it\u201d to running into a former student as a successful adult, I can tell you that having summers off was not the motivation to teach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I then think about my own experiences as a student. Several\nof my mom\u2019s students came from my own school. This meant that she got to know\nthe teachers at my school while she worked with those students which lead to me\ngetting \u201cinside\u201d information on my teachers. It was sort of like listening at\nthe door of the teacher\u2019s lounge, without all of the second-hand smoke!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t until several years ago that I realized how\nfortunate I was with my teachers. I had been talking with friends who shared\nstories about their worst teachers. I had no stories to share. I had classes\nthat I was not good at and teachers that I liked more than others, but I had\ngood teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I went to school in the very small town of Gobles, Michigan.\nIt was rural and poor. But the teachers were first-rate. Many spent their\nentire careers at that small school system. They could have gone to other\nschools and certainly earned more money, had more and better supplies. But they\nstayed. Many driving quite a distance to teach there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But they were good. I suppose it\u2019s natural to not remember a\nlesson on multiplication tables, or U.S. history or pig dissection. But I\nremember the kindness and interest they showed toward me. I wasn\u2019t scared of\nteachers. I didn\u2019t have mean teachers. I had fair teachers who knew their\nsubjects, who taught them well, who cared about us as and our minds, so that\nwe\u2019d be ready for whatever was to follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was so fortunate! And I know that a student sitting next\nto me in the same class may have experienced it differently. But for me, I was\nblessed with some great teachers. Teachers I think about, and whose lessons I remember\nto this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, my English teacher, Mrs. Brill, who always believed\nin me, left encouraging and constructive comments in my journal, pushed me to\nread books that didn\u2019t at first appeal. Who during regular oral book reports,\nwhich scared the living daylights out of me, always kept eye contact with me\nand made encouraging gestures and stayed awake and attentive during 30+\nmonotone, dull and repetitive reports. More than anyone else in my life, Mrs.\nBrill made me feel like I had potential, that I could become someone other than\na fat, shy, awkward teen. She treated me like an adult, someone who had value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Grossa, my shop teacher, who helped me with math by\nshowing me that I could learn it better if I found purpose in it: measuring\nwood for a project. That algebra, which was a terribly difficult concept for me,\nwas useful when I needed to determine the missing length of a board. That a\nmistake on a project was not a failure that must be abandoned but rather was a\nprototype to learn from for the next try. But the biggest thing Mr. Grossa left\nme with was an ability to plan. Until that year I was easily overwhelmed by large\ntasks. Mr. Grossa taught me how to lay out a plan: break things down into small\nsteps that could be understood. Then start to attack the plan, learn, adjust\nthe rest of the plan, and so on. This is a skill I think everyone needs in\norder to be successful. Mr. Grossa taught me this lesson probably sooner and in\na more concrete way than I otherwise would have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mrs. Hibbard, who I had for sixth grade in a combined fifth\nand sixth grade classroom. She loved word humor which has always amused me. She\nused Mad Libs to teach language rules in a fun and memorable way. She also read\nto us. I have fond memories of sitting on a large, round rug and Mrs. Hibbard\nreading The Chronicle of Narnia to us. But she was teaching me how to read. She\u2019d\nask us questions about the story: what we remembered from last time, what we\nthought might happen, why a character did something or what they may have been\nthinking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Mayer was my high school physics teacher. He was never\nafraid of questions. I found myself surprisingly interested in physics and\nelectricity. I was fascinated by series and parallel circuits and based on my\nmany questions he changed up lessons to allow the class to pursue our questions\nand interests. I remember asking some question about electricity and the following\nweek he had built a doll house all wired up with lights so that we could\nexperiment \u2013 all to answer my question. He could have given a statement to\nanswer my question or drawn a picture on the chalk board. Instead he spent his\nweekend building an experiment so that we could learn based on our interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Amrstrong, my high school biology teacher, helped me to better\nunderstand how percentages work. I always sat next to his desk and while we\nwere doing assignments, he\u2019d be grading papers. I\u2019d watch him punch numbers\ninto his calculator and record grades. I had math classes, but watching him so\nfrequently just \u201cuse\u201d math made it practical for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These are just a few of many examples and impressions great\neducators have had on my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teachers of course must know their material, that is a\ngiven. But it\u2019s the connection with students, the world the students live in,\nthe student\u2019s interests and skills, that lead to success. A good teacher is a\ncombination of years of education, ongoing training, and a heart that knows how\nto meld all of that into an experience that truly educates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This year\u2019s Teacher Appreciation Week had me thinking about the teachers in my life. First is my mom, who taught for 30 years. The first 15 years she worked for the county school system as a teacher of the homebound and hospitalized. In that role, if a student could not attend school due to illness […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaronkuehn.net\/tol\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaronkuehn.net\/tol\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaronkuehn.net\/tol\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaronkuehn.net\/tol\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaronkuehn.net\/tol\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=964"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaronkuehn.net\/tol\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":971,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaronkuehn.net\/tol\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964\/revisions\/971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aaronkuehn.net\/tol\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaronkuehn.net\/tol\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aaronkuehn.net\/tol\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.aaronkuehn.net\/tol\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Gobles-High-School-1024x561.jpg\")