This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, May 8, 2012 - A New York Times article about teacher appreciation day (May 7-11 in Teacher Appreciation Week) started me thinking about my own experience with teachers and teaching. My first grade teacher was Lois Irving, Mrs. Irving to us, of course. She was old school and pushing 80 by the time I was her student. She never seemed old to me. Something about her.
Later my sister said that (to Mrs. Irving) I was "the child of a child." Meaning that I was the third generation of my family she had taught. She taught my maternal grandmother, then my mother, then me. Maybe that made me special to her - I don't know. I know I did feel that she liked me. Maybe the other children felt the same way - we never talked about such things then.
Much later at Arkansas Tech, I had to take chemistry and my schedule required that I take a class taught by a football coach. I signed up and thought I was dead: How could a football coach possibly be a good chemistry teacher? Boy was I ever wrong - he was great! Following term I took it with him because I liked him so much. Good to have my eyes opened.
My mother taught first grade in Little Rock for 11 years. She never said anything about how much she cared about her little students (feelings are NOT to be talked about was her upbringing) and there was no need: what she did and how she did it spoke more eloquently than words.
One day when I was in my 30s, I was on the street in Little Rock and a woman said, "Excuse me, are you Myra Gannaway's son?" "Yes, I am." "Well, you don't know me but your mother taught me first grade. The next time you see her I want you to tell her how much she did for me, how good a start she gave me. She really made a difference."
And I repeated that to her the next time I was in contact. My mother went on to receive honors and accolades at Harvard and during her work thereafter; I wonder if any of them has a fraction of the meaning of this woman's simple heartfelt appreciation?
At 41, I moved to Spain and in due time enrolled in the official government language classes to learn Spanish. I already understood and spoke well and needed to learn grammar. I talked to my instructors (in Spanish) and one expressed the Continental philosophy of teaching succinctly: "My job is to (only) present the material. Once I have done that my responsibility is fully discharged." I didn't say anything while thinking, how impoverished; how unfair!
Do you know just how lucky you are to be studying in the U.S.? John Dewey is taken seriously here to a certain extent. He was an educational reformer and his idea "teach the child, not the subject" may be simple. Don't underestimate the profound positive change that can result from this simple idea.
I returned from Spain to Madison, Wisc., at age 49 and studied at the local technical college which was of very good quality. My department (Mainframe and Midrange computer programming) had a group of absolutely superb instructors, people with well over ten years in the industry and then fifteen or more teaching the stuff. They had an impossible task (get us dolts - we were all actually pretty smart - up and running on the subject in two years) which they accomplished with astonishing success. I cannot begin to express adequately my admiration and appreciation. I tried while I was there.
I teach and have taught over the years. Never for more than a few years at a time. It's something I always seem to come back to. Certainly doesn't impress when used as an answer to the "Well, what do you do?" question used to pigeonhole a person as an economic unit. The response was, well, "dismissive." That is the level to which I have felt appreciated. Like what I did was irrelevant; therefore I was irrelevant.
There are exceptions, mostly from school children. One girl I taught in the university stopped me on the street last week to tell me how much I had helped her with her English. We hadn't seen each other for seven or eight years. I got an older woman started with her backhand at pingpong and she just about got down on her knees thanking me. No one else had taken the time and patience to show it to her and then work with her so she could do it.
I taught two years at a teacher's college and I'd tell my students, teaching, if you want to do it right, is the second most difficult job in the world.
Anyone can call themselves a teacher and go through the motions. A teacher should work hard and in such a way that the student doesn't have to work any harder than necessary. A student's job is hard enough as it is and a good teacher knows that.
So be appreciative; be grateful. Tell them. Make their day and quite a bit more.
Woodson T. Gannaway, who is teaching in China, wrote a series for the Beacon a couple of years ago about his travels to Mongolia.