Remembering Our Teachers

I know it has been a good day if I have learned something new.  Several days were probably even better than I think because I may not have realized I had acquired this fresh, distinct and untrained knowledge.  I have, on occasion, pulled great intellectual facts (and fiction) from seemingly deep in the crevasses of my mind.  The wide array and layers of information that one possesses (and if lucky, uses intermittently) is both awe-inspiring and scary.

Truth be known, what you have in your head probably isn’t there by dumb luck.  Somewhere, somehow, someone consciously, or inadvertently, made an impression on you and it stuck.  Granted there is a huge diversity in knowing how to decouple abstract quantum mechanics and blowing your nose, but the fact is that you have learned this information and (hopefully) can recall it for use at the appropriate time.

Not concocted by a greeting card company, but rather out of true admiration and gratitude from folks at the learning end, Teacher Appreciation Week is upon us.  This is the time of year that educators around the country will be deluged by apples (of every sort in every conceivable genre… i.e. candles, ornaments, pictures, plaques, soap, paperweights, etc.) and assorted sundry items that students and parents lavish upon them to say thank you.

Each of us can probably recall at least one instructor in our school-life who captivated and motivated us to reach for our own set of stars.  I had a sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Ella Amundsen, who drove a jalopy of a VW, wore old clunky clogs, seemed to be always disheveled and a bit unorganized with the piles of paper on her desk, demanded respect (and got it), pushed her students to exceed not only her expectations of them but their own and loved every moment of every day of her job.  The fact that I still remember her name and the kind of shoes she wore after 35 or so years and can pretty much pinpoint my quest for knowledge and knowing how to learn back to her, makes her the quintessential teacher in my eyes.  Of course, I didn’t think that at the time when she was pushing me a little out of my comfort zone.  I had to succeed a bit, fail a lot – basically live life and realize, sometimes the hard way, I had been fortunate to have had someone care enough to equip me with the right stuff.

I never thanked Mrs. Amundsen, or Mr. Rick Dill for his ad-nauseum lectures on five paragraph themes (the “tell ‘em what your going to tell ‘em, tell ‘em, and then tell ‘em what you told ‘em” theory still comes in handy), or Mrs. Ginny Varga for not only teaching me to sound out words, but also the life long skill that good manners go a long way and where a knife, fork and spoon reside in a proper table setting, and one of the biggest lessons from Miss Tschimperle, my fourth grade teacher, who, by quite an elaborate testing scheme, taught us to read all the directions before proceeding (when so performed, can sometimes alter the perceived notion and original intent of a document).  It may be a day late and a dollar short, but thank you.

When you are thinking about “how you got to where you are today”, put those years of pent up knowledge to good use and think outside the box and recognize the value of a good teacher – in and out of the classroom.  And, say thank you – even if we can’t say it to them in person… I remember a teacher once taught me that actions speak louder than words.

Cynthia A. McClelland, curious observer of the obvious with interpretations of the oddities of daily life. Mother, wife and lover of the furry, resides in the north Lake Tahoe area.

Cynthia A. McClelland © 2003-