Celebrate Teachers

I feel like this story needs an epilogue, and I've started the epilogue a couple times and failed to finish it. And now, I just don't feel like thinking about it. So, to make a long story short: a student - we will call him SS for Slimy Student - came to me and asked me to lie about his grade on a form he needed me to fill out, I told him I wouldn't, and he then proceeded to try to drop out of my class and enroll in my colleague's class (we'll call her Missy). Apparently Missy said yes to him before she heard the full story. She was ticked off when she heard the whole story, but accepted it as her problem. (She is way too nice, which means that students very frequently take advantage of her, but that's a different story.) Unfortunately, apparently the registrar didn't make the switch right away, and as SS became increasingly slimy and ridiculous, even demanding to meet with Missy over the weekend, Missy started to have second thoughts. After much ado over an entire week, and eventually requiring the Chair's involvement, SS did finally switch to her section, although I had to fill out the form that originally set off this whole shit storm in the first place. End of story.

What I actually want to write about today is something positive, a celebration of teaching. This is inspired by two things: 1. a visit from one of my very favorite students of all time this week; and 2. the death of a teacher from my high school.

Perhaps I don't dwell on the positive enough, but I have mentioned that one of the greatest things about my job is that I have some really awesome students. And I also have students who are not awesome students but awesome people. On occasion, I have students who are awesome students AND awesome people. I love this. Having students who are awesome students and awesome people at the same time is one of the things that keeps me going in my job.

At any rate, apparently one of my hidden talents is that I can write a wickedly awesome letter of recommendation. I suspect I would be inundated with even more requests for letters if I were TTF with a Ph.D.; fortunately for me, the glowing recommendation of a mere instructor for something like med school or PA school or PT school doesn't necessarily carry a lot of weight. Thus, the majority of letters that I write are for students applying for scholarships and summer internships. And that's okay, because even that keeps me plenty busy.

Writing letters of recommendation is not a job requirement, but yet is something most faculty, including adjuncts, do willingly. I would argue that writing letters of recommendation is, in most cases, completely selfless, if you really think about it. What does someone like me have to gain from one of my students getting a scholarship or a summer job or even getting into med school? Pretty much nothing at all except the satisfaction of helping someone I like. Even TTF have little to gain from writing letters of recommendation, except for a slight boost in ego and the possibility that their professional reputation will be enhanced if a significant number of their students go on to become amazing academics (which is unlikely, because in the large scheme of things, very few students will go on to have careers in academia).

It takes a long time to write a letter of recommendation, and it never ceases to boggle my mind that about 70% of the students for whom I write letters can't even be bothered to write a simple e-mail saying something like, "Thank you. I appreciate your time." Thus, I was thrilled when a few days ago, one of my former students, who is both an awesome student and an awesome person, came by my office to personally thank me for writing him a letter of recommendation, and to let me know that as a result, he had gotten a very competitive paid internship - doing research at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, which is a big deal for pretty much any sophomore at any college, but is a REALLY BIG DEAL for a sophomore at our college. I was soooo proud of this student, and I have to admit that part of me couldn't help but feel proud of myself, both because I educated this student in biology for his entire freshman year, and it turns out NIH was satisfied with that education, and because I knew that my letter of recommendation carried significant weight in the selection process, and that my testimony meant something. (The student's potential sponsor, an MD/PhD, had e-mailed me to request the letter and said that the letters of recommendation carried more weight than anything else.) So even though this has zero impact on me in any practical way, it is moments like this that keep me going, moments when I feel like I have truly helped someone.

And finally, I was sad to learn this week of the passing of a beloved science teacher from my high school. As I read the obituary and the comments left by people who knew him (mostly former students), I was reminded how much teachers, especially truly exceptional teachers, have the ability to impact students' lives, and found myself wondering how many other professions offer the opportunity to touch so many lives.

Ironically, I never really had this teacher. Not exactly. I did have him for a while, and was excited to have him because of what I had heard about him, and because I knew that he had profoundly impacted my brothers' lives. He was practically a legend at my high school. One of my brothers, who wanted to be a lawyer for pretty much his entire life, actually considered becoming a physicist and/or high school physics teacher after having this teacher for physics. (Admittedly, this brother is now an attorney, so it was a temporary change of heart, but still.) After a totally blah year of sophomore chemistry, I was super excited to have this teacher for physics my junior year.

Unfortunately, it turns out that physics and I didn't get along, which makes no sense to me, because I was good at math, and physics is very math-based, but whatever. This teacher was very demanding; students didn't respect him for being easy. At the point in my life when I had him, a lot of things were going on, and I eventually ended up dropping out of high school physics, which was a Big Deal and a Total Fail for me, and I wouldn't have done it if my mom hadn't insisted on it. I think she felt that if something didn't give I was going to commit suicide or at least try, and so physics went away, and I never took high school physics. (I later took college-level physics and hated it just as much, only it didn't drive me to suicidal tendencies, and I actually pulled off an A-, so...)

Reading the testimonials from students about the impact this teacher had on them actually brought me to tears. To be honest, I feel sort of left out, and find myself regretting that I wasn't tougher in high school, and wondering how my life might have turned out differently if I had had a passionate science teacher in high school. So many people - from really poor students to really awesome students - have so many amazing things to say about this teacher that it is overwhelming.

But despite feeling sorry I never had the chance to experience this teacher's amazing passion, I am inspired nonetheless. Considering teaching is my current profession, this is a reminder of the power that teachers have to shape students' lives and to play an important role in their formative years.

Young people are weird. When I consider the young me, I'm sure I behaved in a way that the 40-year-old me would disapprove of. I'm sure that many of the people who impacted my life positively when I was young never knew it, and probably never will know it. And unless they die a premature and/or tragic death and I feel inclined to write something about them in the comment section of their online obituary, probably no one will ever know it. This is simultaneously depressing and inspiring. Realizing that I may be having a positive impact on many of my students' lives inspires me, even while knowing that it is possible that the greatest outpouring of love I will ever get won't happen until after I am dead.