Teachers

There are some people who are memorable because they are excellent people.... and then there are those that are so un-excellent that they become remembered for that as well.... Funny how that works. You can be perfectly ordinary and nice and no one will remember you. Story of my life right! I need to start being extraordinary..... or really mean to be remembered. But this is not about me. This is about some of the teachers I remember while in High School.

I remember Coach Koenig. I don't remember if I actually had any classes with him, but obviously by his name; he was my coach. He was probably my favorite coach right along with another long distance coach that I can't place the name to. He was a long distance coach and a genuinely good guy- the unnamed coach. Koenig was my short distance coach. He worked all of us students hard and treated us well. He didn't play favoritism, or if he did, he didn't show it. I have a real problem with coaches that play favorites.

Then there was Carp. Carpstein I think was his full name. Everyone just called him Carp. I was in one of his very last classes as a teacher. He was the kind of teacher that exuded love, excitement, and devotion to his students. He truly loved what he did and every student knew it. He respected us. Which says a lot of a man who can respect teenagers. He made me want to be a better student. A better learner. And a better person. Thank you Carp.

Who had Mr. Daley? Anyone. I hear he no longer teaches at GHS. I felt like Daley was probably my smartest teacher. I think I may have asked him once why he was teaching us, instead of working at a university or elsewhere. He made me think deeper about the world around me. He made a good student- or at least I thought I was good student- an even better one. His style of teaching was creative and just what I needed. I remember one day coming into class and all of the desks were turned upside-down or sideways. It looked like a small tornado had ripped through the room. And then there was Mr. Daley in the center of all. "Welcome to the stone ages," he said. I wish more teachers were like him.

Infamous teachers- which doesn't actually mean they were bad teachers. They could have just been mean, slightly strange, or played favorites. There was the one math teacher that would always yell at us when we would get a little rowdy. There was the science teacher with the metal plate in his head that just didn't seem to be all the way there. (teaching isn't for you if you're brain isn't functioning fully), there was the some sort of arts teacher that played favoritism. If you were allowed to hang out with this teacher outside of class time, for whatever reason, it felt like a privilege. Not cool to make students feel left out or not good enough to be around you. Then of course there were the few teachers I specifically remember that were just bad teachers. One couldn't explain the concepts, the other made it so incredibly easy to get an A that I didn't even have to go to his/her finals test because I already had 115% in the class....

Thank you all my teachers for being memorable. In one way or the other. High School just wouldn't have been High School without the amazing/funny/rude/horrible/strange teachers that were there!