Thankful Sunday, February 17, 2019

I am thankful for good teachers.

As we have been sorting through boxes of things from my parents house, there have been a lot of trips down memory lane. Recently I took one of those trips with my sisters as we were looking at old yearbooks trying to decide who got which one. We had fun reading signings and remembering old friends and teachers. Later this got me thinking about some of the excellent teachers I had growing up. Our school system didn't have much money and we had overcrowded classrooms in rundown facilities, but I got a good education because I had good teachers.

A few come to mind. Miss Stemple, my first grade teacher, who read to us every day after recess and kept us wanting to hear what happened next. She also had us write the Roman numerals from 1 to 500 (10-20 every day) which reinforced the sequencing of numbers besides learning Roman numerals and practicing our fine motor skills.

Then there was my third grade teacher, Mrs. Conley, who had us put on a radio broadcast every morning. No fancy equipment here. Just a bicycle light taped to a pole that looked like a stand up microphone. At home, we would scour the newspapers for stories that we would get up and report on. There was a timekeeper who watched the clock and a recorder who posted all of the articles (some handwritten). We even made up ads for the broadcast with original songs composed during recess. Everyone loved it and I still remember, "This is GC3 going on the air at 9:05."

Mr. Westfall

In 7th and 8th grade I had a wonderful science teacher, Mr. Westfall, who made science seem so simple. He explained things in matter of fact way with everyday examples. We learned about heat exchange by looking out the windows at nearby houses and examining how much snow was on the roofs. We would guess which ones had the better insulation by how much snow we saw.  Another time while learning about combustion, he told us when buying a used car, to always look at the tail pipe. If you see black, it means the engine is not working well and there is incomplete combustion going on. And the list goes on.

Mr. Dimmick

In high school, I had the same math teacher, Mr. Dimmick, all four years. When I got to college I found I was more advanced than most of my classmates in calculus who had gone to richer, bigger schools with more offerings.

These are just a few of the good teachers I had over the course of my formal schooling. And for the many things they taught me in a very skillful way, I am thankful.