I loved school at first. I loved my teachers too. Then there came a time that school mostly bored me and teachers were to be avoided. I had a couple teachers that frankly, left me cold and outside. Literally, one teacher said I could be her Outstanding Student that year. She meant Out Standing in the Hall. I didn’t write the book, Thirteen Ways To Sink a Sub, but after that, I could have written the forward. Now, I would love to go back and be a student again. I never dreamed I’d be a teacher. That was the furthest thing from my mind. Now, a lot of my friends think I ‘d make a pretty good teacher. How do you go from disliking school to being a pretty good teacher? I can attribute this to several things.
I’l mention just a few. For starters, I had some very good teachers; Mr. Robinson, Mr. Mickelson, Mr. Venner, Mr. Smith (the Grouch), Mrs. Zahaki, Mr. Schuetzle. These were not good teachers because they were good at teaching Math, Latin, Government, English etc… They were good teachers because they taught me about me. They taught me how to understand myself. I remember Mickelson teaching me how to take tests. (I then remember his head shaking as I did very well taking a test by flipping a coin.) 
I think most importantly, they taught me how to learn about me. I learned to recognize my strengths and weaknesses. I learned how to study others, see myself in them and then get better.
I eventually married a teacher, an English teacher. English was my worst subject. It’s interesting how life happens. To this day, I’ve never said, “God, I’ll do anything you want, just don’t send me to Africa.” I’ve learned better. I’ve seen other people end up in Africa, metaphorically speaking. As a student, I hated reading and writing. Now, I read and write for a living. Because I have to? Nope. Because I am doing what I love. I’m not saying that I love reading and I love writing. No, I’m only slightly above neutral towards these disciplines.
I made a concerted effort to become learned. Why? Because knowledge is power. Who doesn’t want power?!? Even before watching He-Man say, “I HAVE THE POWER.” I wanted the power. The power to control my life. To control what I did and when I did it. I wanted to go where I wanted and do what I wanted. Is it any wonder that one of my latest ventures is titled To Do In This Town? I discovered early on that it took the combination of Time and Money to create that kind of power. I saw that knowledge could lead to money. It was later that I heard words put to the idea that if you have enough money you can buy back your time.
First I learned good study habits. Then someone pointed me to a book about learning styles. The Way They Learn by Cynthia Ulrich Tobias. It was in this book that I started to actually put myself together. Cynthia taught me to understand how my mind works, how to order information so that my mind would best be able to take it in and process it. It was here that the door to education was first opened to me. By understanding how people learned, myself included, I began to learn how to communicate better with people. I combined this with another book that moved me substantially forward, The Language of Love by Gary Smalley and John Trent. Now I was a communicating fool. Emphasis on fool.
In recent years another group of teachers reached into my life and pointed the way to the next milestone in my journey to becoming a teacher. These teachers are John, Jack and David. These are very common names, but they are certainly not common men. This group of teachers turned me inward as well. John taught me the gift of using story to give vision and inspiration. Jack has taught me many things, I think they could all be surmised as discipline. Were I to surmise what David has taught me, in a word, Love.
Some of us learn quickly. Sadly some do not. I’ve come to the conclusion that we all have the ability to learn. We all have different styles of learning. Some by reading and some by doing. Some of us learn in a classroom. Some of us learn best at the School of Hard Knocks. Me? I’ve had to go to school in all these ways and places. It depends on what I’m learning. I am learning how to learn better every day. The interesting thing is that the more I learn how to learn, the better I get at teaching.
As I reflect on this 1200 word ‘piece of work” (insert Sarc mark here), I find it interesting that my list of heroes, some of the worlds greatest leaders, can in some way all be considered teachers. I heard John tell a story of how he plants trees. He gives each tree a name, the name of one of his students. He talks about how each tree is different. Each tree has different needs. Each tree grows or dies. Some grow with his help, some grow inspite of it. When John told this story, I think he was making a different point. But as I recall and reflect on the story, the point I take from it today is that good teachers don’t really teach. They may help you remember certain facts or rules or whatever. They may even be very good at it. But what good teachers do, is not teach students, but grow people.
Over the last several years I’ve found myself surround by teachers. It seems that of all the people I’m around on a regular basis, they either are a teacher, were a teacher or are married to a teacher. I kind of feel like the odd-duck Irish in-law that married into a large family of Italian immigrants. Everyone around me talks this strange language. They all know that I’m standing there slack jawed and wide eyed with not a clue what they are talking about. At least there is a lot of love and good food.
It’s not likely that I’ll ever be a teacher with a classroom. I won’t use the word never, because in fact, I’ve taught in several classrooms. I’ve taught close to 100 students. Not for very long, and I’ve not taught them very much. I guess it’s hard to be around so many teachers and not start to look and act like one. I’m beginning to get the language down. I’m beginning to understand that these people are ‘called’ to their profession. More importantly, I think I’m catching the spirit. The spirit of growing and building people. The spirit that says I’m best at teaching, helping and growing others, when I focus on making me better. I guess I’ve learned to love helping others grow.
Earlier I said that I was doing what I loved and that it wasn’t reading and writing. Then I proceeded to WRITE about several books that I’ve READ. So what gives? This is what gives. I love growing and helping others grow. Now that you’ve READ this, I hope you’ll WRITE a comment that about how you’ve been helped in some way.