Teachers
 

What teacher let you see the world differently?

For me it was Mr. Hunnicut. He was my 5th grade teacher. Our classroom was a Quanset hut during the Cold War.

Mr. Hunnicut spent time with Eskimos and told us how they shared resources. It was the first time I ever heard someone say that working as a community can be better than working against each other.

Peace.

Jim "Stack" Stacchiotti, 8th Grade American History teacher. If you ever wonder where I get my distaste for "fairytales"..........it came from Stack. He insisted upon giving us a realistic view of history, rather than the "Litanny of Hogwash", (as he called it) that was our state mandated textbook.

I'll never forget him asking someone;

"Does it disgust you to find out politicians stretch the truth and wheel and deal to make things happen? Sometimes even getting people killed in the process?"

Response; "Yes, it does."

"Then you're a fool. They all wheel and deal. In fact, that is the very nature of politics. Always has been and always will be. I suppose you believe that nonsense about the cherry tree as well?":D

But, what was more important than that was his teaching style. For example, he would hand you a situation and ask you to tell him how you would handle it. "Mr. Bacon, you are General Gage. And you have just learned that William Prescott has occupied Bunker Hill and set about building fortifications. What do you do? You have 30 minutes to figure it out, go to the map and give me your answer."

It was awesome. He didn't just make you read and recite history, he made you sorta live it. You had to become the charactor, walk in his shoes and think about the situation.

Dave

Miss Moore, 10th grade homeroom and English teacher, started me on the road to classical music - never looked back.

Mr. Bridgwater, Chemistry 1 and 2 in high school. He helped us find out that learning does not have to be a stifling environment. We learned the period tables and Avogadro's number, and how to use a Bunsen burner, but I also remember playing ELP's Pictures at an Exhibition during lab.

Regards,

D-Ray

Craig Sturdevant, Sociology I, LU.

First day of class, he lectured on the supplies which were delivered to a natural disaster, to the best of my recollection, they included 5,000 sets of falsies.

Then he brought in his buddy, who just sat there and said nothing. The class went ape shit, they didn't know how to deal with someone like that...it was out of their realm of experience.

The vast majority attacked him, asking why he was just sitting there and not responding. And I imagine that the vast majority never made the connection that is was none of their concern if he wanted to just set their and say nothing.

They didn't understand that the problem was theirs, and not the instructor who didn't behave as they were accustomed to.

The point being is to ask yourself as to what your motivation is before confronting someone else who is doing no more than existing.

Look inward before you look outward, or at least that's the lesson I picked up.

Chas

Or, maybe the guy just got his jollies driving the class crazy?

I can respect that too.

Dave

Ms. Pare, 3rd Grade math teacher. My first student-teacher crush. :)

Mr. Warrick Hill, my pre-calculus teacher in 11th grade at Robert E. Peary HS in Rockville, MD. A brilliant man, a great teacher and author. He was an African-American and his brilliance and demeanor helped dispel the false notion of intellectual inferiority among blacks that many may have held at the time.

Mr Turpin, who taught me it's OK to be a HS teacher, and an alcoholic.

Slurpin Turpin. I've emulated him ever since.

Pete

We had one like that, Miss Boucher, the art teacher.

Her replacement was Miss Ray, who proved that you can gain tenure even if you're totally insane. Not to mention a racist.

We didn't have that many black students, but she would lecture the class on the black race while they were present, use the N word, tell about how they would steal everything you owned and murder you in St. Louis.

Now we may be a bunch of peckerwoods, but at least we're civil peckerwoods.

Chas