Oh shucks folks, I didn’t mean to be such a curmudgeon, with my “negative,” “trying to be witty” blog posts. So, to show I have a nice side in this post I would like to tell you about the worst and best teachers I had in school.
The worst teacher I had was my fifth grade Reading teacher. In this class, the students had to read a certain amount of pages in a semester, but had freedom to choose what book they would like to read. I picked an enormously thick book, titled “Ye Men of Iron,” for my reading. My teacher informed me that I could not read that book because it was outside of my reading ability. So, rather than encourage me to do my best, this teacher reinforced a defeatist attitude that plagues many students. Even if I failed in the end, at least I would have learned to attempt the impossible. I remember how crushed I was and discouraged by being told I couldn’t do it.
Fortunately, the next year, my Reading teacher was the best teacher I ever had. She was supportive without mollycoddling her students. It was the same situation as the previous year, we had to read a certain amount of pages to read but could whatever tickled our fancy. So wanting a challenge, I picked the “Count of Monte Cristo.” My teacher warned me the difficulty of the book, but encouraged me to meet the challenge.
It took me the entire semester, and constantly discussing the book with my teacher as I read it, but in the end I finished reading all sixteen hundred some odd pages, and understood it. So I would like to say thank you Mrs. Frankel, you were by far the best.

Posted by
Matthew Byrd