In the mid 90’s I was in a computer class and we had some really basic paint program that our teacher said we had to make a piece of art with that included a saying.
This was at the height of the Got Milk campaign so guess what everyone did, a cow or a glass with Got Milk as their slogan. Since we were allowed to listen to CDs with the CD ROM and a pair of headphones I popped in some Aerosmith and made a geometric man with a Dr Seuss hat and my slogan was “Reality is such a drag”.
The next day the teacher calls everyone but me up and gives them their B graded print out, then he calls me up and hands me mine with an A+ and says that’s for not doing got milk and actually being creative…by the way where did you come up with that? I told him I heard it on the Aerosmith album I was listening to, he grinned and asked if I liked Boston. I told him I hadn’t listened to them before, and the next day he had a Boston CD sitting at my desk when I sat down, turned out he had a book of CDs he kept in there and let me borrow anything I wanted during class for the rest of the year.
Good teachers can make such a big difference, and it’s almost always in these kinds of unquantifiable, “I just encouraged the student in the way they needed” kinds of ways.
This, as much as anything else, is why defunding the education system is so criminal. Stressed-out, underpaid and overworked teachers just won’t have the mental space to do these kinds of things.
Yep, I was lucky to have a few out of the box thinking teachers and I learned more from that handful of teachers than all the others combined.
I had a social studies teacher that had us act out historical events…he was asked not to return the next year after ordering us, the roman legion marching down the hall, to attack the vice principal.
I had a government teacher who would teach the facts for three days then spend Thursday and Friday debating us on the facts.
Several others like them that just challenged the status quo are the only reason I graduated high school.
In the mid 90’s I was in a computer class and we had some really basic paint program that our teacher said we had to make a piece of art with that included a saying.
This was at the height of the Got Milk campaign so guess what everyone did, a cow or a glass with Got Milk as their slogan. Since we were allowed to listen to CDs with the CD ROM and a pair of headphones I popped in some Aerosmith and made a geometric man with a Dr Seuss hat and my slogan was “Reality is such a drag”.
The next day the teacher calls everyone but me up and gives them their B graded print out, then he calls me up and hands me mine with an A+ and says that’s for not doing got milk and actually being creative…by the way where did you come up with that? I told him I heard it on the Aerosmith album I was listening to, he grinned and asked if I liked Boston. I told him I hadn’t listened to them before, and the next day he had a Boston CD sitting at my desk when I sat down, turned out he had a book of CDs he kept in there and let me borrow anything I wanted during class for the rest of the year.
Good teachers can make such a big difference, and it’s almost always in these kinds of unquantifiable, “I just encouraged the student in the way they needed” kinds of ways. This, as much as anything else, is why defunding the education system is so criminal. Stressed-out, underpaid and overworked teachers just won’t have the mental space to do these kinds of things.
Yep, I was lucky to have a few out of the box thinking teachers and I learned more from that handful of teachers than all the others combined.
I had a social studies teacher that had us act out historical events…he was asked not to return the next year after ordering us, the roman legion marching down the hall, to attack the vice principal.
I had a government teacher who would teach the facts for three days then spend Thursday and Friday debating us on the facts.
Several others like them that just challenged the status quo are the only reason I graduated high school.
Not only that, but teachers are now actively reprimanded for these kinds of interactions.
Goddamn that was wholesome. Thanks for sharing.
Welcome, yeah it’s one of the few good memories I have out of my school days.