Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
This week I received a Teaching Excellence Award at A&M. The award was voted on by students and I came out with a very high rating. I was one of five grad students on the list that included forty-seven profs, assistant profs, etc. It’s real nice to be recognized as a good teacher and it’s also real, real nice to get the generous cash award that came with the recognition. Anytime something like this happens, though, it’s important to remember that you didn’t do it on your own.
I thank God for giving me the ability to be a good teacher and for putting me in a circumstance where I can positively influence young people. I thank the students who took their own time to go online and vote and take the thing seriously even though there was nothing in it for them. I thank my wife, Margaret, for being so cool with me going to grad school and being so supportive of what I do. I thank my parents, who were my first and most influential teachers. I believe my mom was the first person in her family to go to college. She graduated with honors in Education from Louisiana College. She never officially taught school anywhere (too busy raising kids and keeping the books for my dad’s animal clinic), but always taught us, instilled in us a love for reading, and emphasized the importance of education.
There’s nothing original in my teaching style. It’s a hybrid hodge-podge of great teachers I’ve had. There are some great teachers in our department – the Department of Hispanic Studies. I take ideas and techniques from some of them. I’ve been in church since I was old enough to take to the nursery and I’ve heard some particularly great preachers. To be an effective preacher, you better be a good teacher (no accident that, in the Bible, people often address Jesus as “Teacher”). Some of the very best teachers I’ve ever had were in the Marine Corps and the Army (I went through a bunch of Army schools as a Marine), and I don’t mean just officers. A lot of the instructors I had as a young lieutenant had learned their lessons in the most extreme human pathos of Vietnam. You can bet that they taught me with a sense of urgency. Like they were delivering fire to mankind. To this day, the best instructor I’ve ever seen in any context was the First Sergeant of the rifle company I served in, Jim Barnes. He’s closely followed by the Sergeant Major of 1st Recon Battalion, Bill Coffey. I regret to say that I have no idea where they are or what they’re doing now.
I have a bad habit of excusing my lack of “scholarliness” as being a product of Louisiana public schools. I did have a few horrible teachers who were great examples of what not to do, but I also had some fabulous teachers – people who could easily go be college professors - who taught for pitiful pay under some adverse circumstances. Mrs. Ruth O’Quinn taught honors English and when you were in her class you knew you were in the presence of greatness. She sat up on a high stool behind a lectern. Never raised her voice. It was like she would cast a spell on us. She’d even get a little racy, too, teaching Shakespeare.
The best schoolteacher, ever, though was (still is), Mrs. Becky Tisdale. She was one of the first women to graduate from Texas A&M. She taught me American History and Journalism in junior high. She still teaches Honors French and I’m on Facebook with her. She was a dynamo. Being in her class was like being taught by 3 people. She was demanding and fun and fascinating and she’d challenge you and come up with all kinds of stuff to help you remember the material. She was the first teacher who taught me to be a critical thinker – to go beyond just what the book said.
I hope they’re all a little proud of me. They helped shape me.
