Truth about teachers
Hearing of the wholesale displacement of students in Louisiana and
Mississippi brings home how fortunate we are here, where school’s
back in and the teachers are back too.
I’ve experienced high school three times, once for me, once for
Keaton and once for Katie, and I suspect that if I’d had my
children’s teachers when I was growing up, I’d make more sense today.
In general, I admire teachers more than I used to. In fact, I
sometimes think I’d like to teach something -- Vintage TV Western
Appreciation, say -- but I doubt if I could handle the strain.
It’s tough up there day after day at the head of the class. You’ve
got a captive audience, yes, but their interests usually lie
elsewhere. If you don’t bring your subject to life you can lose the
house pretty easily, and then they’ll start focusing on any
mannerisms you might have. The only thing I remember my chemistry
teacher saying is “nukelar.”
Students group their teachers into the good, the bad, the mean,
the weird and the boring. Sometimes these classifications overlap.
I had a band teacher, Mr. Nechoda, who suffered horribly from the
disparity between the ideal music he heard in his head and what we,
his students, played.
A passionate man, he once became so disgusted with our playing at
rehearsal that he flung his music stand across the room, narrowly
missing the assistant director.
On another occasion, in a far-seeing, philosophical mood, he said,
“Everybody in this room is gonna die.” He meant “eventually,” but I
thought he might mean “today.”
I was in his brass section, and even now the sight of a French
horn fills me with dread. But our first chair player went on to
become a highly regarded professional, so Mr. Nechoda’s dynamic style
couldn’t have hurt him. It may have sparked him.
Which leads me to the teacher classification I left out above: the
inspirational. These are the teachers who instill or encourage a love
of their subject and end up guiding you to your vocation.
I once believed that if you’re lucky, you get one such teacher in
life, but I now believe you can get up to half a dozen, because
Katie’s had several.
Either the teachers are getting more memorable, or we’re lucky
here.
Of course, you need a personality match. One student’s inspiration
is another’s nightmare. Mr. Wingler, my English teacher, encouraged
me to write, and now you can’t shut me off till I run out of space.
But sometimes I can still see Mr. Nechoda coming toward me, wading
through the woodwinds to find the kid who screwed up the
oom-pah-pahs.
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