The Classroom

I know I keep referring to my first principal, Bill Drake, in a lot of my writings. The man had a profound effect on me. His motto of “Teach as you would like to have been taught” is the foundation for most of my educational beliefs. It’s a concept I had already subscribed too long before I met Bill, but to hear him say it and reinforce that belief was what I needed at the time.

So how did I like to be taught? How did you like to be taught? How do we know? The answer is simple. Think of your favourite teacher – and what made them so. It’s what I did. I’ve based my entire teaching practices upon what I can remember of my grade 5 teacher, Mr. Glance.

For years I thought my perceptions of Mr. G were clouded due to time, that my mind had made him out to be better then he was – but that didn’t matter. He was my goal, and he’s what I set out to become. But recently I got together with 3 other students from his class, people I hadn’t seen since the late 80’s, and we all remembered the same man. We all enjoyed his class so much, and we all agreed that he was one of our favourite teachers. One person even commented on how she would have been devastated if, like some of our siblings, we had missed out on getting Mr. Glance as our teacher.

But what made Mr. Glance such a fantastic teacher? One who we all idolized? While student teaching I had a chance to work with one of his former colleagues, and was informed that I shouldn’t base my style on his as “he couldn’t teach his way out of a wet paper bag.” I can’t tell you how angry I was to hear that. But I thought about what she had said, and I realized that I learned more from Mr. G the any other class. So obviously he could teach… but what did I learn?

I learned about loyalty. Mr. Glance cared about his students, and took time before and after class, not only working on school work, but just listening to whatever we had on our minds. I remember the after school sessions – there would always be 4 or 5 of us just hanging out, talking about books, music, TV – didn’t matter. Mr. G took the time to talk about what ever was important to us. We knew he’d be there when we needed him, and we’d do anything for him.

I learned to think outside the box. Every week Mr. Glance taught us Pop Poetry. We learned how to look for meaning and literary devices, but not in conventional text, but in pop lyrics. We studied everything from the Beatles to Bruce Springsteen – and by the end of the year – we were teaching the subject ourselves. It’s a unit I personally teach to this day (Lisa is still trying to get in and observe one of those lessons). It wasn’t just the pop poetry though, it was his approach to teaching – finding what motivated the students to teach the lesson – not what was in a text book that I remember.

He taught me to think for myself. Mr. Glance valued our opinions. He’d listen to whatever we had to say on a topic. It wasn’t complete chaos – he still guided us and pointed out what we needed to learn and think about – but he made us responsible for finding and owning that knowledge.

He taught me that learning was fun. It didn’t have to get dull – it could be and was interesting. He fostered that idea of life long learning. He made us realize that any day you didn’t learn something was a waste of your time. Life is a learning journey, one that only gets better the more you take an active part in it.

He taught me much more then that – but those were the lessons I have always held near and dear to my heart – and why he was my favorite teacher of all time. I’d often wanted to tell him that. The day my students started calling me Mr. G – I felt incredibly honoured. Not just because that was the name we called whom I believe was the best teacher in the world, but because that told me we had reached the point where I was still a teacher, but they we comfortable enough around be to trust, respect, and be friend me. Just like Mr. Glance did 22 years ago.

So, to continue the quest of defining what makes a good teacher – the question this week is a simple one.  Who was your favourite teacher, and why?