The Good in Teachers
I’m not one who likes to bash on
teachers a lot. Not saying I’ve had the
best success with all my teachers but I try to find the good in all of
them. My reason behind that is because
my grandmother is a school teacher and I know all the stress she goes
through. Before moving to Washington, I would
go in three to four times out of the week to help my grandma in her
classroom. Although I enjoyed helping
out and seeing the kids understand when I would go around helping each one
individually, I saw the stress that came along.
Being a teacher isn’t easy. As a
matter of fact it’s a lot of hard work which a lot of people don’t see. I actually had two amazing teachers, one who
made me even consider becoming a teacher myself when I got older.
For starters, I was somewhat of an unruly
child growing up shortly after my parents divorced. A few years had gone by and my mom was
remarried and had a baby on the way. I
was in fourth grade when I met one of my all time favorite teachers, probably
the best I’ve had. I had a lot of mixed
emotions about my step dad and that I would no longer be the only child. Nine years of my life had gone by where I was
the spoiled one and now that spotlight was about to be taken away. Selfish I know, but it’s the truth. Mrs. Jenkins helped me work through my
emotions, through poetry. Ever since I was
little I would always love making my own homemade birthday and Mother’s Day
cards. Mrs. Jenkins helped me expand
that horizon even more and put my emotions on paper. We wrote a lot in fourth grade surprisingly,
A LOT. At first I wasn’t too keen on the
idea and dreaded it but as time went on, my fourth grade teacher went onto show
other fourth grade teachers as well as fifth, that I had a gift in my
writing. Something different, something unique
that was like no other. I then took
feedback that other teachers were telling me and wrote my little heart
out. My poems would be about just
anything that had gone on in my mind, along with pictures of course.
Back in Florida, we would have to
take a test each year called the FCAT.
It would determine whether you would move up a grade or not. I hated the FCAT. I thought if you’re making the grades, then
that should determine whether you pass or not, not the stupid test. Mrs. Jenkins was prepping my classmates and I
for the FCAT writing which is why we would write so much in class. The first couple essays I had wrote she would
always find things to correct and I would find myself getting frustrated not
only at her, but myself. I wanted to be
perfect. I wanted to be the best writer
there was regardless if I was only in fourth grade. Mrs. Jenkins would see the frustration and
call me over quietly after talking with the other students about their papers
individually. She’d always say, “Syd,
you have a gift. Now either use that
gift and make it even better, or dwell in your mistakes and not change them.” I don’t know why but she had this way of
calming me down and making me want to become even better of a writer. She made me feel good of myself, she made me
feel proud. A lot of teachers don’t go
out of their way to do that for their students.
Mrs. Jenkins, well she’s a great example of a role model if you ask
me. She never gives up on her students
and I love that about her.
Next, would be my girl’s weightlifting
and flag football coach. I never had her
as a teacher but I thought of her as one.
Coach KJ was something else. She would
have you so mad sometimes, then the others she would have you laughing up a
storm. The kind of teacher you have a
love hate relationship with. A lot of
students would talk crap about KJ because she was “too hard” on her students
when in reality, she was only trying to help her students become even better than
they were. Now, not to say she didn’t
have students that didn’t love her because she did, you just wanted to be
careful on how you acted around her. Having
her as a coach and being a student aide for her, we learned a lot about each
other. Before practice and sometimes
even during lunch, I would go to her class and before I could even ask for
help, she would say “Did you try first?”
Then if you said yes she would say “Let me see your work and where you
tried.” We sure as hell knew how to push
each other’s buttons but at the end of the day, I was so grateful to have her
as a coach and friend. She pushed me
both on and off the field. She pushed
all of her students and athletes because she saw something different in us
all. She’d rather have her hate you for
busting your ass making you try, then to have you like her just because she’s
cool and fun. Whenever I think of KJ I always
think of the saying, work hard play hard.
She challenged me but she also made it fun. Not only that, but coach was always there
whenever you needed her.
Throughout my life I never had a strong
relationship with my step dad. We would
get in at least one fight once a day and once was lucky. That bad relationship with my step dad caused
my mom and my relationship to go in a downward spiral, which sucked because my
mom and I use to be so close. I could go
to KJ whenever I was having a bad day and she’d talk me through it. I remember one Monday afternoon my junior
year things had gotten really bad in my house that previous weekend so I had
gone to KJ’s room to talk to her about it briefly. She told me “Why don’t you write her a letter?” All I could do was laugh and in my head I thought
it was the dumbest idea. She said, “No
really, you don’t even have to give it to her.
Just write your feelings down to get it all out.” KJ was right, but it only helped the pain go
away for so long. That’s not what
matters though. What matters is she was
there for me. She talked me through my
pain.
I’ve had a lot of teachers, both
good and bad. Mrs. Jenkins and Coach KJ
though. They’ll always hold a special
place in my heart. They weren’t just
teachers but role models and I will forever be thankful for them and how they’ve
had a part in shaping me in who I am today.
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