{"id":21242,"date":"2020-10-12T12:46:22","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T17:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/?p=21242"},"modified":"2020-10-12T12:49:55","modified_gmt":"2020-10-12T17:49:55","slug":"be-a-teacher-no-matter-what-else-you-choose-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/be-a-teacher-no-matter-what-else-you-choose-to-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Be a teacher. No matter what else you choose to do."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.\u201d (II Timothy 2:2)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every teacher who is truly effective became a teacher because of the influence of a highly effective teacher. <\/em><\/p>\n

You can\u2019t say that about preachers. Preachers are called by God. (Teachers can be also, but it\u2019s not a requirement as it is with preaching.)<\/p>\n

Brad Meltzer is a highly successful, best-selling author. In a Parade<\/em> magazine article, he paid tribute to Sheila Spicer, his ninth grade teacher, who is responsible for making him a writer.<\/p>\n

Meltzer writes, \u201cThe teacher who changed my life didn\u2019t do it by encouraging her students to stand on their desks, like John Keating in Dead Poets Society.\u00a0 <\/em>Or by toting a baseball bat through the halls, like Principal Clark in Lean on Me. <\/em>She did it in a much simpler way: by telling me I was good at something.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One day, Ms. Spicer said to Brad, \u201cYou can write.\u201d She wanted to move him into an honors class for budding writers, but because of scheduling problems, it wasn\u2019t an option. Instead, she \u201ctold me to ignore everything she wrote on the blackboard for the rest of the year. \u2018Ignore the discussions. You\u2019re going to sit here and do the honors work.’\u201d<\/p>\n

A decade later, when Meltzer\u2019s first book was published, he returned to her classroom and literally had to re-introduce himself to her. He said, \u201cMy name is Brad Meltzer and I wrote this for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

She began to cry. Ms. Spicer had been considering early retirement, feeling she wasn\u2019t having enough influence on the students.<\/p>\n

Brad writes, \u201cI didn\u2019t know how to make (her) understand what she\u2019d done for me. Thanks to her, I fell in love with Shakespeare\u2026 I learned how to compose an essay. It was her belief in me that gave me the confidence to become a writer. I owed her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some years later, when Ms. Spicer was retiring, Brad Meltzer attended the party held in her honor. He stood in the back of the room trying to blend in. A teacher stood, called everyone to order, and presented Sheila Spicer with the usual parting gift\u2013a crystal vase. Then, she called on the honoree for a few words.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe delivered a stem-winding speech that began like this:<\/p>\n

\u2018For those of you complaining that kids have changed, and that it\u2019s harder to teach these days, you\u2019re getting old. You\u2019re getting lazy. These kids haven\u2019t changed. You have! Do. Not. Give. Up. On. These. Kids!’\u201d<\/p>\n

When she finished, the room burst into applause. Meltzer was ready to apply for a teaching certificate.<\/p>\n

Now, that\u2019s what a good teacher can do: affect everyone in the room with the joy and excitement of growing and learning and becoming and helping others to do so.<\/p>\n

My teachers\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing made me want to become a teacher more than sitting in a freshman classroom under Mae Parrish,<\/strong> professor of history at Berry College. She was as good as they come.<\/p>\n

No one made me want to saturate my preaching with teaching more than George Harrison<\/strong>, professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He combined a great love for scholarship in the ancient studies with a devotion to Jesus and a thorough knowledge of the New Testament alongside\u2013and this is what surprised me\u2013an awareness of what the city council was doing that day in our city.<\/p>\n

In college, I took the courses required of teachers and was certified. We were on the quarter system, and as I finished one Friday in March, the next day received a phone call inviting me to teach in a high school 45 minutes up the highway. \u201cYou start Monday,\u201d the superintendent of education said. Since I had majored in history and minored in English and speech, naturally I would be teaching biology and English literature.<\/p>\n

I taught the rest of that semester, and never again. That is, not officially. We married, I got a job in a cast iron pipe plant for two years and pastored a small church on the side. After two years, we headed to seminary.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve always been a teacher, have always had a deep love for the teaching profession, and stand in awe to this day at the impact a teacher can have.<\/p>\n

Two final things on the subject of teaching\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anyone who loves science and would enjoy reading about the best teacher of that subject ever should get to know Richard Feynman<\/strong>.\u00a0 (Find his bio in wikipedia and go from there.) I recommend as a starter the book, Surely You Jest, Mr. Feynman<\/em>.\u00a0 A compilation of some of his talks and lessons carry the title The Pleasure of Finding Things Out<\/em>. He was brilliant (a Nobel Prize winner) and hilarious. An unbeatable combination.<\/p>\n

The Teaching Company brings lectures from the finest college classroom teachers to your automobile\u2019s CD player for only a few bucks.\u00a0 I love to pop one of these into the player while making long drives. Google them and be amazed at what you discover. (I\u2019ve enjoyed their lectures on Lincoln, on building great sentences, on public speaking, on the year 1066, and several others.)\u00a0 Google www.thegreatcoursesplus.com.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.\u201d (II Timothy 2:2) Every teacher who is truly effective became a teacher because … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21242"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21262,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21242\/revisions\/21262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}