My Worst Teachers: Lessons They Taught a Future Educator

Like most children, I started my early years with an unquenchable yearning to know more. Unfortunately, during middle school and high school, I encountered several teachers who seemed to specialize in frustrating my passionate desire to learn. Yet in the end, I did extract some very important lessons from their classes. From my worst teachers I learned what not to do when I became a teacher.

Lesson 1: You Can't Teach What You Don't Know

I was deeply discouraged to find myself in an honors English class with a teacher who lost papers, mispronounced vocabulary words on spelling tests, and told us not to use those big words in our essays. We seemed to watch more literary movies than we read, and the less time I spent on a writing assignment, the higher the grade I got. The effects of her disorganization and ignorance were plain to everyone but her it seemed.

Lesson 2: Being Nice But Unfocused Yields Little Learning

My physical science teacher, who was also the football coach, showed us Harry and the Hendersons and other irrelevant movies just to pass the time. Apparently he had other pressing issues concerning him. From this affable guy, we learned about science in fits and starts, covering less than half of the material that we should have. Mostly what I remember is junior high boys teasing the girls about brassieres and such. Meanwhile, I would have much preferred to gain a working knowledge of the composition of this planet on which we live.

Lesson 3: Expertise without Effort is Meaningless

My first Spanish teacher was a native speaker of Spanish. I was thrilled to have an expert in the language as my teacher, until it became clear that he would continue to pour over the daily newspaper every morning while we gabbed and played card games. We learned the pledge of allegiance in Spanish and little else. It was a shame to miss out on all that he could have offered us if only he had bothered to let us hear his perfect, authentic accent for more than a few minutes each week.

Thankfully I had many more competent and enthusiatic teachers in my school career, and from them my desire to learn and eventually become a teacher myself continued to grow. When I walked into my first classrooms of univerisity students, I approached my lessons ever mindful of the good and bad teaching examples I had observed.

This ability to mine learning opportunities even from teachers who taught poorly helped me in my own development as a teacher. Not every lesson of mine went well, but I tried to dust myself off and reflect on my mistakes. I noted what not to do next time and also what components had been sucessful.

This never-ending process of refining, discovering, and reinventing is what l love about teaching. There are always improvements to be made and new challenges that arise. For me, being an educator offers unparalled opportunities for growth and creativity; engaging learners involves the investment of one's whole being--heart, soul, and mind. I can hardly imagine doing anything besides rising to the great challenge of helping others learn. That some teachers choose incompetence over the dynamic pursuit of excellence is something I will never truly comprehend.