I had the good fortune to have dinner last night with a kind, generous writer, whom I’m not going to name because it would feel like a thudding anvil of a moment. (And I was just one of several people that he treated.) During dinner, he observed how seldom people thank their teachers. He has a point. So, here, I’ll thank Lynne Collins, Meredith Steinbach, J. Lyndon Shanley, Sallie Gaines and Sandra Cisneros, who were, respectively: my high school math/homeroom teacher, my first creative writing teacher, my poetry/Chaucer professor, my copy-editing instructor and the leader of the creative writing workshop that really got me going. I could probably build on this list, but that’s a good start.
The sad fact is, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about people in my early life who should have been mentors, or at least found a way to adapt the Hippocratic Oath to their jobs, which involved working with young, impressional people. And, yes, at the risk of beating a dead horse — they’re all connected to my journalism education at Medill. (Note: So was Sallie Gaines, above.) Medill, it’s not you, it’s me! But here are just three reasons why I don’t donate money to my alma mater.
Instructor #1 stares up at me from time to time when I check in with the Romenesko blog, a daily habit even for former journalists who have made a complete recovery. I graduated in a pretty tough climate and, because I was completing only the unaccredited four-year undergrad degree at Northwestern, I received zero help in job placement. That was reserved for those in the graduate school. I sent out more than fifty resumes and got a job at the Waco Tribune-Herald, a Cox newspaper with a circulation of more than 50,000 at the time. It was actually a pretty good job and the right place for a nervous, fairly green reporter such as myself. My instructor mocked me for the rest of the semester, calling me the Waco Kid. Thanks for schooling me in the idea that it’s acceptable to ridicule someone you have essentially declined to help.
Then there was the editor to whom I was assigned while on Teaching Newspaper. This is a Medill program where credit is given for working at a newspaper as an unpaid intern. Because the paper gets the work for free, it’s expected to give the interns serious experience. When I arrived at the Wilmington (Del.) News-Journal for my quarter there, my assigning editor was at a conference. She came back two weeks later, took me to lunch and said, “I told them not to give me an intern. I don’t want you, I am too busy to supervise you. You are on your own.” Thanks for what proved to be a pretty good real-life introduction to the newsroom and for letting me know that female solidarity in newsrooms was not guaranteed. I see that you are now in “consulting.” That seems like a good fit.
And, finally, thanks to the Medill instructor who commented on my weight every time he saw me. I hope you stopped that when you returned to the private sector. It’s gray-area, in terms of sexual harassment, but still kind of icky.
Praise a teacher, then slam one. That’s the game for this Friday at the end of a strangely productive work week.
Oh, man. Dr. Nodel one of my history professors at Western Michigan Univ. He was Estonian and lived through what he was teaching. I actually voluntarily signed up for 8:00 am classes with him. Going back to high school, Mrs. Alden who taught English and let us read Titus Andronicus, and Mr. Crandell who taught Civics, Government and Economics. They were the best.
The worst one, well, probably Mr. Goodrich and Mr. Anderson who were nominally history teachers but were actually football coaches who had been given a classroom. Fortunately, I’ve always had a deep love of history so learned in spite of them!
When I was in 8th grade at The Rectory School in Connecticut, at that time a Boys Private boarding school, I had a teacher tell me the only difference between me and a bucket of shit was the bucket. Middle School education in 1968 was so much different than it is today. My son started 7th grade this fall and it has proven to be a great experience, so far. Friends with older kids say the teachers in middle school are great and the kids are awful, especially the girls.
As Joe Jackson said, “don’t you know that it’s different for girls”.
My best ever teacher mentor taught my sophomore year in college History of the Motion Picture class. There were two films each week and a 3 to 4 page critique required for each. I started out with F’s and D’s on these papers and through his help and guidance and patience I was doing A work by mid October. Learning how to write from him has benefited me in everything since, even now in my career in Foodservice Manufacturing Sales Management, which has nothing to do with my BA in History and Literature.
Yay for Waco!
As a former teacher, I’m sometimes amazed at what students remember and how they think of me. Not long ago I went to the 44th reunion of the first group I ever taught. It was an enlightening and humbling experience.
I began my college career as a pre-med major, and I requested a meeting with the pre-med advisor. When I got to his lab, he was working on something and didn’t even speak to me; I asked him what major he suggested (bio, chem, something else?) He looked up for about a second and a half (enough time to see that I was a cute little freshman), then returned to his vitally important work and said, “Honey, I don’t care if you major in knitting, as long as you pass your MCATs.” Nothing else. I switched majors to English and History and went to law school instead. I don’t think I had a bad or unconcerned professor in four years of those two majors, which was pretty lucky.
The praise goes to Miss Bassinger, who was the first teacher to ask us to write poetry. I wrote a love letter to the boy in the next chair.
The slam: To Ms. Kahlil, the guidance counselor who said she thought I’d “do well” in retail. She ended her thoughtful advice with,”You’re very graceful for a girl of your size.”
All praise to Pat Yosha,, the English teacher who thought that yes, i could write, who suggested that yes,I write a poem (which won “honorable mention” in a national contest, I have the paper somewhere- my first ever effort). To Bill Cibes, my friend and college professor who taught me to question and think, simple as that. To Patricia Schwendenwien, one of THOSE amazing teachers. She taught Latin at Hall High and I studied it with her and learned SO MUCH. She should have been cloned – she could get anyone interested in anything.
Raspberries (the plplplplpl kind) to that guidance counselor, Faye K, who kept suggested little finishing school type colleges, and nudging me to take courses I was apparently good at but HATED. Who never counseled. Who never heard me, who never GOT me. What WAS your job exactly?
Bill,
I have a hunch that you have a lot of students who remember you with great affection. And I know you’ve been a mentor, informally, to a lot of crime writers.
My praise is for the psych professor at Reed who treated me as a colleague when I was only 17 years old, helped me get a grant for empirical research, and let me co-author stuff with him as an undergrad. Oh, and the music teacher in second grade who told me it was always better to sing loud and proud than soft and pretty.
The smack down is for the high school principal who tried to ban me from extracurricular activities for cutting my hair like Annabella Lwin from Bow Wow Wow. I only wish I had a tape recording of that conversation where my dad went to bat for his freaky daughter.
I always thank Mlle. Elizabeth Senft, who taught me French in high school. So well, in fact, that in those years I actually dreamed in French. And coincidently taught me literature, civilization, music, culture ….. She’s the only teacher who really made me work, and that includes my law school profs! Fortunately for my soul, I have written to thank her.
On the other hand, I never thanked Miss Moore, who taught 7th or 8th grade English, and drummed grammar into me. I don’t even remember her first name, and for that I am ashamed. Miss Moore, where ever you are, thank you.
A hard slam to the English teacher in 10th grade who had us look up definitions in the dictionary and practice spelling while she sat at her desk talking to herself (her husband was one of the superintendents).
A huge thank you to Mrs. Robinson who rescued me in 11th grade from a poor scheduling mishap and pulled me into her Humanities class where she turned off the lights, put on music and encouraged us to dream and write.
My praise goes to my high school English teacher Mr. Murphy, a salt-tongued ex-Marine and former steel worker who noticed I liked to make stuff up and encouraged me.
Slam for an unnamed high school algebra teacher who came to work usually hung over, spent too much time looking down the blouses of the girls in the front row, and screamed a lot. Thanks, dude. Until eleventh grade, I’d dreamed of working for NASA. Having you teach college-level math convinced me to be a writer.
My praise goes to Ann Allan, who taught cataloging at Kent State. I took everything I could from her, she was a wonderful teacher and advisor. I used to run into her at conferences before she retired.
Slam for the piano teacher my parents found for my sister and I after we had begged for a piano. He played with the San Antonio Symphony, but that didn’t make him a good music teacher. He called me stupid, when what I am is tone-deaf and can’t maintain a rhythm, which I didn’t understand back then. After several painful weeks I was allowed to quit. My sister, who has much more musical ability, stayed with him for at least 2 years.
Praise: Walked into Ruth Morse’s journalism class as a high school junior. Who, what, when where, why. First news story completed. She wrote “not too terrible” across the top of it. Best comment ever. It was honest. It made me want to work hard to get better for her and for me. By the next year I was the editor of the high school newspaper as well as a youth writer for the city’s newspaper. She gave that to me by being an excellent teacher (she had worked for UP or API at some point in her life) and by making me a thinking (and perhaps even a somewhat skilled) writer.
Slam: Hard to narrow down. So many bored teachers who only thought of getting through the class. One substitute teacher with a sadistic streak a mile wide. I think that, for sheer humiliation, I have to pick Janice Eisenberg, 7th or 8th grade English teacher at Live Oaks School in Milford, Connecticut, who once made me go out into the hallway with her and she forced me to walk up and down the hall over and over trying to teach me what she felt was a more lady-like manner. What gave her the right to do that? I was tall and big. Still am. So nobody is ever going to call me a vision of graceful movement. How dare she make me feel less than human because she didn’t like the way that I walked? I wonder if she is still out there destroying the fragile egos of kids.
I had some teachers like that down the road at Loyola. Maybe it’s a north side thing. (None ever did it to me; I was going the acceptable route of dental school, but I heard them do it to classmates. Usually the students took it with humor. One even sorta zinged the teacher back, though I don’t remember the specifics of what was said…)
Here’s to Mr. Donahue who had me sit on his lap after school in eighth grade. Here’s to all the math teachers who shook their heads and called on the boy next to me.
And here’s to Dr. Christopher Leland who made me think a fifty year old might be able to write stories.
A slam to Mrs. Swift, who taught accounting. She also owned a nightclub, so she would give an assignment and put her head on her desk and sleep since she had worked at the club until late. The two smartest students would do the assignment; those seated next to them would copy, and the answers would float out into the class from there.
Kudos to Mrs. Jocelyn Pierce, who encouraged my writing and is still teaching, though I graduated nearly 30 years ago.
Wow. I’m reading all these great stories of inspiring teachers and all I can think is: wow, I wish my curriculum would allow for that sort of teaching. It’s not like the ideas aren’t there, but I simply don’t have the time in between all the mandatory grammar exercises and listening tests.
Best: tie between 1. Peter de Voogd, my 17th/18th century English lit professor at University. His dry wit and epic knowledge made Laurence Stern not just bearable, but entertaining and 2. Mrs. Pot, my German teacher in high school. I never liked German an still don’t (not really) but she was kind and interested and always remembered things about us. She’s one of those people who always find the best in people, even if they’re stuck in puberty.
Worst teacher by far was Mr. Geomini, my second year Religious Sciences teacher. He thought we were all stupid, that teaching was a horrible profession, and that he was too good for his profession. Just a nasty, arrogant little twerp.
My thanks goes to my son’s current middle school teachers. His world history teacher somehow convinced him to join a debate team and he’s not a joiner. His drafting teacher has him building stuff in the shop class that inspired him to build bunk beds for his sisters’ dolls. His Advanced English teacher has been patient and understanding. He was diagnosed with a learning disability in 2nd grade and she looks beyond the spelling, at the ideas on paper. He has also been ill a lot and they have been great about handing me make-up homework, extra credit, understanding about deadlines, etc. The public school PTSA sponsors a monthly luncheon to thank the staff. I bring 2 salads every month. It’s the least I can do for these hard working public school educators.
I’m grateful to nearly every teacher I had. Libby Calk, 3rd grade, made me laugh; Bessie Fricke, 4th grade made me love to learn; Patsy Kimball, high school English, made me write when I didn’t want to (all the time); Dr. Thomas Brasher and Dr. Robert Walts, undergrad and graduate literature, taught me to read critically by spend every class reading aloud and discussing poems and novels line by line.
On the other side, the high school teacher who took his personal frustrations out on me should be grateful I kept my quiet, civilized, peace-loving father from visiting him at school. And the prof at the major university who hadn’t updated the syllabus for fifteen years–never mind.
Eternal glory to Gladys Creech, a strict and seemingly humorless (she wasn’t!) 7th grade teacher who gave me a firm grasp on grammar and punctuation, and to Lois Fisher, who taught high school English and encouraged several of us to write by assuming that even dirt-farming kids had talent.
Eternal damnation for sadistic grade-school teachers like Glennie Smith, Estelle Pierce, and Mamie O’Neil, who terrorized little kids and didn’t think a school day complete if they didn’t paddle someone.