Thank a teacher

Teachers can make a huge difference - in both a positive and a negative way.

In the book Excellent Advice for Living there is a quote:

To become a hero, thank a teacher who made a difference in your life.

I was able to do this recently. I had a teacher at primary school called Mrs Tinsley. She was an excellent teacher and I remember I really enjoyed her lessons. At the end of each day she got the class to say a prayer after they had put all the chairs on the tables - and I still remember it to this day.

My parents play for a bowls club and one of their members was also a teacher at my primary school - she wasn’t my teacher but she was my brother’s teacher for a while. When I was visiting my parents at one point I met her and she mentioned that she had recently met up with Mrs Tinsley to celebrate her 100th birthday!

I was able to pass on my thanks, via this other teacher, for the impact she had on me.

There are a number of other teachers that also had a big impact on me:

Miss Reynolds - my first teacher at infants school. Apparently, she said even then I would go on to university, which wasn’t that common where I grew up at that time.

Mr Morrish - he was my teacher for my last year at primary school. He also ran the school football team. I really thrived in his classes and loved that year at school.

Mr Bunyan - my maths teacher for a while at secondary school. He let myself and a friend use the only school computer at the time after school which was stored in a room at the back of his classroom.

Dr Fiddian - technically not a teacher, but he was a lecturer at Cardiff University and was the person who offered me the place when I phoned up, having to have gone through the clearing process.

And on the negative side there was a maths teacher when I took my A Levels. The grades of everyone in her class dropped over the course of the time she taught them. I will never forget trying to understand a demonstration about vectors that she did using a stool and a pair of knitting needles. To this day I still don’t understand what she was trying to show!

Having said that, I have been very fortunate on the whole to have good teachers and I certainly would not be where I am today without them.

Links

Excellent Advice for Living

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