Responding to some apparent criticism raised by a few recent posts about education, Brad Warbiany has a post up giving thanks to the teachers that have inspired him. In that same spirit, here’s my own list:
Mrs Reese: My first grade teacher and, along with my Mom, the one person most responsible for turning me into a book worm. I learned to love reading in this class and for that I am forever grateful.
Mrs. Williamson: If there’s anyone responsible for turning me into the political geek that I am, its my third grade teacher. My year in the 3rd grade happened to coincide with the 1976 Presidential election and we spent a good part of the fall following the election and, in January, watching President Carter’s (ugh) inauguration on television on January 20, 1977. Unfortunately, I was too young and naive at the time to realize just how much of a disaster the peanut farmer from Georgia would be.
Mr. Tursi: And here’s the guy who turned me into a news junkie. Every morning of 6th grade, we’d have current events and we’d all be responsible for bringing in something from the news to share. I was hooked. Morning television and even the newspaper. Heck, by the time I was out of middle school, I was reading the New York Times. Fortunately, I’ve evolved since then.
Mr. Kulhanjian: My 9th grade history teacher. He opened my eyes to the devastating effects that tyranny can have. We learned about the Holocaust, of course, but also about the Armenian Genocide which, I learned as that year went on, was a special concern of his since he was Armenian.
Mr. Greenberg: My 12th grade AP US History teacher. I never quite figured out what this guy’s story was about, but at the time I was convinced that he was either a retired Navy officer or a former CIA agent. Or maybe both. Suffice it to say that he made history, and current events, come to life. On the morning after the United States bombed Lybia in 1986, he spent the entire class giving what I can only call a detailed military analysis of how the strikes were carried out and what was likely to happen next. When we covered the crisis that erupted between the United States and China over Quemoy and Matsu, he discussed it an way that convinced me that he was there, on a cruiser in the South China Sea, when it happened. By the time the semester was over, I was a history nut.
Almost makes you wonder why I turned out to be a lawyer doesn’t it ?
Seriously, like Brad, I have significant concerns about the state of public education. I think that the system as it exists is broken and that students, especially students in inner city school districts, are being cheated out of an education by a system that is dominated by bureaucrats who want to preserve their power and unions that view change of any kind as a threat. And its distressing that, over the course of 13 years of public education I can count on one hand the teachers who have truly inspired me. At the same time, there are teachers out there who want to make a difference and who I’m sure are doing the best they can. Unfortunately, the conditions under which they operate makes it impossible to do what really needs to be done.
Technorati Tags: school choice, Education, vouchers, Public Education
