One of my favorite teachers that I had in high school would have to be my Calculus AB AP teacher, Mr. Wright. Now Mr. Wright was a man in his sixties and had even taught my friend’s dad. This man had been around for a while and knew exactly what he was doing, but if you listened to him, he made it sound like he was completely lost. He always warned us before we started new material that if he was a real teacher he would go over the book, but that he was not smart enough to go over the way the book did it. Instead he would teach us a way that made sense to him which was always much easier to both comprehend and perform in problems.
He definitely was not your typical teacher for several other reasons. One of the most notable would be his bet that he made with the class. If we ever caught him forgetting a chain rule, he would immediately give the first person to call it out twenty dollars on the spot. When a friend of mine in my class noticed, sure enough he gave him a twenty on the spot. My friend even tried to not accept the money, but my teacher made him take the money since he made the bet. Another unique characteristic of his was his teaching method. He would lecture for ten or fifteen minutes in the beginning of class if that, then we would go to the chalk board in groups and work out homework problems. He would walk around the class and help us out when we were stuck. He would also occasionally give a student a light smack in a manner of jest, which had surprising force coming from him. This teacher was a great guy, and definitely one of my favorite teachers throughout high school, although he complained that he wanted me to fail one of my tests in his class to “humble” me a little.
He taught every class in the same loud, energetic manner and somehow was able to make calculus enjoyable. He also genuinely cared for every student in his class and was willing to help with anything if he was approached. He was a very fair teacher that looked at the effort that the students made in his class, not just the numerical grades. Overall, I believe that I truly learned the material which was proven to me when I got a 5 on the AP test at the end of the year.
One of my favorite teachers in high school was also my Calculus teacher. He was a truly intelligent man who could explain the math in a way that it made perfect sense. He made me never understand why people thought that calc was such a hard class, since he made it easy. True to his nerdiness (which helped design government satellites that google now owns), when he broke his arm, we did the physics of how it broke with angles and everything. We were all cracking up while he was drawing the diagram on the board.
ReplyDeleteRene that is a unique teaching style and seems to have served you well in your endeavors in the Engineering field since coming to TCU. It is obvious to anyone that knows you well that you have reaped the benefits of the teaching style. I had a calculus teacher too that nearly convinced me to become an engineering major because of her teaching style and love of problem solving. She was kind, helpful, and often times hilarious. It is definitely evident that the teachers we have can enhance our lives outside of academics.
ReplyDelete