Tchr+Prof+MS

In Junior High School, one of my favorite teachers was named Mrs. B. and she taught both my 7th and 8th grade English classes. She was a very creative teacher and managed to keep a classroom of pre-teens and teens focused and interested in the lessons. I remember having many opportunities for group work/projects, ranging from creating a castle out of various materials (my group chose to build out of sugar cubes and assorted candy) to holding a mock trial over animal testing (I had the opportunity to be the prosecution). What I admired the most about Mrs. B. was that she could turn anything into a learning opportunity and always had time to answer any questions that a student had, even if the question didn’t immediately relate to the lesson. She was a great teacher because she treated each student as an individual and showed her compassion and passion for her work every day. -- Kara Blue I suppose my favorite middle school teacher was my eighth grade American History teacher, Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith was a WWII veteran, and definitely a teacher from the old school. He did not use handouts or even an overhead projector. Group activities were few and far between. Mr. Smith was a chalkboard teacher and his method was lecture from the front. This is anathema to all that classroom education seems to stand for today, often, I think, substituting content for the shiny and superfluous. It’s not the act of teaching from the front that intimidates contemporary educators nearly so much as an inability to do so, or perhaps a lack of training. Mr. Smith taught from the front…and we loved him for it. Mr. Smith lived through a big chunk of American History and that made all the difference for his lectures. He told us about the Great Depression as a first hand account. The Great War was the war of his parents. Truly, Mr. Smith had direct living connections all the way to the Civil War, with family letters and artifacts to prove it…and to teach it. As a Marine, he fought in the Pacific Theatre for the entire span of WWII and returned to survive the hell of the Chosin Reservoir in Korea. At one time or another, Mr. Smith encountered and survived everything! When he spoke, // he lifted you out of your desk and hauled you away with him // to a WPA project or a soup line, a blood filled foxhole or a fireside chat with President Roosevelt, a radio broadcast of // The Shadow // or the first episode of // I Love Lucy //. Mr. Smith was more than a history teacher; Mr. Smith // was history. // I learned from Mr. Smith that effective lecturing can uproot your senses and take you to another place entirely, where your learning seems almost as experiential as actually being there. This doesn’t mean that an On-line project about building the Hoover Dam is bad, only that the right speaker can make the concrete pouring into your imagination feel wet. Facilitating learning is not the same thing as creating learners; it lacks the connectivity. If you can’t tell the tale, you’re only doing part of the job. Even all these years later, I consider Mr. Smith to be // my // history teacher. --John Skelton Looking back on my years in Junior High School I would have to say that the teacher who influenced me the most was Mrs. Jones. She was my eighth grade science teacher. Mrs. Jones was known for being the toughest teacher in the eighth grade, and her classroom was always in pristine order. Mrs. Jones seemed to know that if she showed any sign of weakness in her classroom her middle school students would have readily manipulated the situation in their favor. As a result, Mrs. Jones had her rules and if anyone broke them, no matter who the student was, there would be immediate consequences. Even though Mrs. Jones might not have been the most popular teacher in the school, she was respected as she always treated her students fairly and equally. I have to admit that throughout most of the school year I did not like Mrs. Jones because of her tough, no nonsense attitude. Nonetheless, I found myself not only learning plenty of information about science in her class, but for the first time in my academic career I was actually interested in science. My passion had always been towards History and English, but because of Mrs. Jones dynamic approach to teaching science I became captivated with the material. She was able to teach complex materials in a way that students could relate to their everyday lives. She also tasked us with interesting experiments that sparked our curiosity. Not only did she make science interesting, but she also challenged us as students. As a student I always reacted well when given challenges, and this is perhaps the reason I started to like Mrs. Jones’ class. Every day Mrs. Jones gave us an intriguing but difficult assignment, project, experiment, questions, or test. Even though I would grumble about all the work I had to do, I secretly appreciated how Mrs. Jones was pushing my limits. Overall, I appreciate the way in which Mrs. Jones was able to control her class so that we were all treated fairly, and an environment was created where our interest in science could flourish. Even though Mrs. Jones was not the most liked teacher in the school, she had a standard of excellence and a love for her students that was unwavering.--Katie Valliere