Happy World Teachers’ Day

Do you have a special teacher that you will always be thankful for?

I had many. But who comes to the top of my mind today is my wonderful high school Latin teacher who was so funny.

Not a week passes as I am writing that I don’t think about how Latin still helps me to understand the English language so much!

Every Monday in class, he showed us slides of Rome or mythology or Roman history – it was always an easy day, and I never thought much about it until years later when I got to actually visit Rome myself. All those “easy” Mondays came right back to me, and I never realized how much I learned from them!

After my trip, I wanted to write him to thank him, and I learned that he had passed away at the age of 60 – too young. Moral of story: don’t wait to thank your wonderful teachers!

I also had a wonderful math teacher who was also funny. He somehow actually made math fun – I don’t say this lightly, because math was never my strong suit! But somehow I ended up in advanced math – and he made me feel that math was understandable and that anyone could understand it. I think that also speaks a lot for that time decades ago – a time when girls were definitely the minority of the advanced math class – but I never felt that difference.

My English teacher was also our tennis coach and he made us actually read books – but we got to choose from a list, so we didn’t feel exactly forced (Let’s be honest here, reading just about any book was always okay with me. 🙂  We may have learned more about life from him than the particular books we were reading. He was funny too!

I think I’m realizing the theme here is that the teachers that made an impression on me seemed to really enjoy their jobs. They radiated a joy. They had the ability to make us feel like we could truly do the work.

And they were flexible. Some of them didn’t give homework on the weekends – imagine the humanity!

Yay for our wonderful teachers!