Who was Your Teacher That Mattered

As we watch the news of budget cuts we consistently see teachers criticized for pay and benefit issues.

Being married to a teacher and understanding how hard she works and how much she cares about her students success I take offense, naturally, at talk of teachers being overpaid.

That said we all have a teacher who mattered in our lives. Many of us have teachers that changed our lives. Who was the teacher that mattered for you. For me there are several.

First and foremost and clearly the person with the most positive influence was my high school history teacher Mr. Francis. I always had an interest in history and his classes burnished that interest in me. When I think of all the historical books and movies that I have enjoyed I have to think that Mr. Francis was a big influence on me. He always talked about current events in class. I have tried to do the same thing with my children. I saw a report my son wrote talking about his interest in History and Politics and know that I have put an interest in him. This comes straight down the line from Mr. Francis.

Another teacher who had an influence on me was my eighth grade social studies teacher. When I was in his class he used a method which I later used in work enviroments and on my own kids. Mr. Soumi gave us independence and we were told that we could work independently on chapters and for each chapter test in which we got a certain grade we would increase our likelihood for an A. For example if we were to complete 5 chapters we would get an A, 4 a B, and 3 a C. In the first quarter most people were more than happy to get a B. Mr. Soumi did not appreciate people settling. So at the start of the second quarter he advised us that he expected more people to get A's so he was changing the requirements. We were very happy and assumed he realized that the assignment had been too hard to get an A.

However Mr. Soumi felt otherwise. He raised the requirement for an A to 8, B to 7 and so on. As an adult I have used this often to show an example of how you have to work hard to get where you want to be and settling for less is not a good thing to do.

Teachers can have a big influence on you. We might want to remember that the next time we criticize them for getting a three percent raise.