Final Paper #2

    

Throughout my life I have had many teachers, some good some bad and a few hardly even memorable. Honestly, the hardly memorable outweigh the good and the bad. It takes a certain type of teacher to successfully reach their students and keep the lessons they taught them implemented in their memories for years to come. I believe it takes commitment, love for teaching, and a dedication to your students to be a great educator. Out of the many teachers I have had throughout my lifetime, I've chosen two particular teachers to write about, one fantastic teacher who has all the qualities of a good teacher I believe a student needs, and one very poor teacher who lacks the drive to connect with his students emotionally and educationally.

I'm first going to focus on Mr. Miranda, my old 8th grade social studies teacher. Mr. Miranda is a large, overweight man who had a big grey beard, slicked back hair, and always had a new eye catching Hawaiian shirt on. Mr. Miranda was very self-involved; he constantly set the students standards up to his standards. Using phrases like “if I can do it you can do it” without realizing that everyone has different skill levels large or small. He constantly bragged about his accomplishments and how he was able to pass any test in college without study or review, not realizing that he was setting a bad example for his 14 year old students. He also loved talking about himself, he was in love with his own image and if you disagreed with him you were always wrong; he’d dismiss you without considering your opinion first.

I can remember first stepping into his classroom; I was 14 years old and an adolescent youth who didn't give a hoot about school or academics. I can remember walking into Mr. Miranda's classroom with a swagger walk that said "I couldn't care less". Me and Miranda made eye contact and I could tell by his raised eyebrow and scowl that he wasn't looking forward to our time being spent together. I plumped my bottom on the seat closest to the back and made my posture as lousy as possible. As soon as class started, Mr. Miranda, with his scowled face and bright Hawaiian shirt that clearly didn't compliment each other, slowly raised his body out from his cramped seat and wrote his name slowly and carelessly on the whiteboard. As he did this, i took a look around the classroom, it looked ordinary enough, but there was a strange smell in the air. It smelt as if he left the trash out too long and something began to fester and rot inside. Soon after i noticed the smell i saw a few plastic zip lock bags pinned to the wall furthest from me and closest to Mr. Miranda. I raised my hand, interrupting his introduction speak about his many accomplishments and degrees. He hesitantly called on me,

 "whats in those plastic bags?" I asked,



 "It's a science project," he explained



"I'm curious of how long it takes for a school cafeteria pizza to rot"



"oh..." I  said with a puzzled look on my face



"But why are you doing science in a social study class?" I questioned, innocently.



"Now turn your books to page..." He ignored my question...

Mr. Miranda was a character for sure and a very bright man, but he was not teaching material. I eventually flunked his class, but that's not why I dislike him; It was his lousy teaching methods. The thing that bothered me the most was that he favored students. He had a few students that he would constantly call upon, whether my hand was up or not. He doubted that I or any of his less favored students had anything intelligent to say. Eventually I stopped raising my had, seeing as there was no point. As an 8th grader, only 14 years old, I required some sort of praise or satisfaction to continue trying in class and Mr. Miranda gave me neither. It wasn't long that I stopped doing homework, started sleeping in class, and eventually stopped showing up all together.

Mr. Miranda wasn’t fit to teach 8th graders, I believe that at age 14 students need teachers willing to listen and set an example. At this age students need the building blocks to prepare them for high school, they need teachers willing to go the extra mile to create a learning environment for every student, but Mr. Miranda had no drive to improve his teaching methods, he was in love with himself not the students.  I believe he lacked the drive to touch every student in a specific way and create a lasting learning experience for everyone.

              Now Mr. Frease is my favorite teacher of all time, and I'm glad that I had him my senior year of high school as a Life Long Wellness teacher.  Life Long Wellness is the perfect class for him to teach, it's a class similar to health but without all of the details of the human body In this class Mr. Frease described the difficulties in coming of age and how to deal with family, drug, and depression related stress'. Mr. Frease is around 60-65 years old, about 5'10'' and always had a smile on his face. He treated every student with respect and wasn't too hard on grading as long as he believed you were learning from the subject. We had a few paper assignments in that class, and in order for me to write about a subject I have to be emotionally involved (that's why I don't do to well on research papers), every written assignment he handed out I put my heart and soul into and I could tell he read every one thoroughly, making marks and comments where he thought necessary.

There are a few moments that really stand out in my mind about Mr. Frease, but one in particular stands above the others. A friend of mine, who I will not name, spent most of his senior year in and out of depression. His previous host family abandoned him and we adopted him into our family which was very hard for him. We spent hours talking about his life, I would try to bring him up and remind him about the positive things and would try to get him to forget the negative. But, eventually I began to get annoyed with him constantly being depressed about nearly every negative thing that came into his life, and I started being frank with him telling him to "lighten up and grow some thicker skin. I knew this wasn't helping, but I thought I had betting things going on in my life besides my brother. Eventually, after a long period of not speaking with him he came to me and told me that the thought of suicide had popped into his head. I spoke to him for a couple of hours and gave him my usual talk, but I knew this wouldn't work and that I needed to seek help. I told my friend to speak with Mr. Frease and to tell him all the things he had spilled out to me. I have a clear picture of Mr. Frease and my friend talking, it was after school and Mr. Frease had taken him on a walk, they paused on a hill and sat for a long while. The two of them spoke on that hill for more than two hours, and when they finished, I saw them laugh, hug and shake hands with a smile on both of their faces. They parted ways and my friend came to me with a look of satisfaction and said to me "Mr. Frease is right, life is always good." My bud has been happy-go-lucky ever since.

This experience showed me Mr. Frease's dedication to students, and his willingness to go out of his way just to make a lasting difference in someone’s life whether it means telling them they did well on their assignment, or saving a life. In order to be a successful teacher it takes commitment, love for teaching, and a dedication to your students and Mr. Frease had all of these qualities.