Happy Teachers' Day!

[Scheherazade]

Today is World Teachers Day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Teachers%27_Day).

Please share your memories about your teachers and favourite fictional teachers with us :)

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

There's a day dedicated to the appreciation of teachers? That's surprising.

[Charles Darnay]

sure as hell wouldn't know it around here.

Edit: I should clarify that by here, I mean my physical location - not this site.

[Helga]

ah yes, this is actually a big thing here on the ice. It's all over the news and articles and interviews. We do love teachers.


Fictional teacher... easy, professor Jones!

[Scheherazade]

Fictional teacher... easy, professor Jones!Excellent choice :D

I love the scene the female student writes a message on her eyelids.

[Paulclem]

I remember once when I was teaching in Reception - four to five year olds. I had an assistant called Margaret, and we were prepared for the first day. The Mums and Dads started bringing in the kids, and we were marshalling them into the cloakroom, sitting them on the carpet for the start and generally wading amongst the chaos that happens first thing.

Anyway, Margaret and I noticed an appallng smell around the same time that a child was being dropped off who was wailing in a most distressed manner. We naturally tried to calm the child - Margaret took her off - into a corner to try to bring her round, whilst I coralled the rest into a group sat them for a story.

At this time, they haven't yet learned the rules if they haven't been into the nursery, and so one four year old - probably the youngest in the group - who hadn't been to school before - began playing with the other kids - quite innocent but in need of distraction. So I had her out with me sitting by my feet helping to read- whilst the bawling from the corner is still going on and the smell was still unlocated.

Eventually margaret managed to calm the child and them proceeded to locate the source of the smell which turned out to be something unpleasant trailed in on one of the kids shoes, and was naturally all over the place. Luckily for us, assembly was soon, and we lined the kids up, relieved that the carpet could be cleaned. It had been a particularly chaotic first start.

It was only then that I remembered that one of the parents was in the Wendy house filming the first day at school. I never saw it, but God only knows what he made of it all.

Later that year in the same class, I went into the boys toilet/ cloakroom to chivvy them along for dinner and caught a couple of them drinking from the water that flows from the top of the urinal to flush the bowl. They must have thought the urinals were brilliantly designed to be dual purpose.

[OrphanPip]

I get my first batch of papers to correct next Friday, I don't know if I'm looking forward to the experience. The class is a business English course, so many of the students are ESOL.

[Scheherazade]

Eventually margaret managed to calm the child and them proceeded to locate the source of the smell which turned out to be something unpleasant trailed in on one of the kids shoes, and was naturally all over the place. Luckily for us, assembly was soon, and we lined the kids up, relieved that the carpet could be cleaned. It had been a particularly chaotic first start. This reminds me the year when I worked with young children (4-11). One of the younger ones would produce the unpleasant smell and we would end up having to clean it up. I worked there only for one year for some reason :D

First few years of my career, I used to be the youngest person in the class, all my students being professionals trying to learn English mostly. Learnt some precious lessons.

Pip> Are they ESOL or EFL? I find delivering different topics to ESOL students much easier than the EFL students, whose language support needs much greater. Good luck! :)

[OrphanPip]

Pip> Are they ESOL or EFL? I find delivering different topics to ESOL students much easier than the EFL students, whose language support needs much greater. Good luck! :)

They are a mixed group, it is a mandatory introductory course in the Faculty of Management, so there are a number who are completely fluent but also a good number who are ESOL. I think they have to be reasonably competent in English or French to be admitted. Yet, the class is a U0, a qualifying year for out of province and foreign students who didn't attend the extra year of school from college standard in Quebec before moving on to the 3 year bachelor's program, so I don't think many French students are in the group

Edit: They are just working on simple book reviews, from a set list of popular business oriented books.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Well, I'm currently teaching English 101 (all native English speakers) and I'm quite enjoying it so far.

The way my university sets up English 101 is that it's all about getting students to learn writing as a process. They've spent 12 years learning that the only way to write an essay is using the 5-paragraph-essay format, and it's our job to get them out of that mindset, because the 5-paragraph-essay is a horrible writing strategy (it's a practice in organization, at best). They really cling to this format because it's easy and straightforward--the idea that writing is a multiple layered process with multiple steps (and that writing is a thinking process in of itself, and not just a means to an end, i.e., the final product) is tough for them to grasp.

The first assignment I had them do is I wanted them to answer the question "What is art?" (Art being the theme if my class.) I told them not to try and define art as a whole, as two pages is not enough to do that and it's probably and impossible question to answer anyways, but to tell what art means to them--what they see as art, maybe some personal activity in their lives' that they define as art. It's all about idea invention.

We did that for the first four or five weeks or so (idea invention that is, a few other essays dispersed within) and right now we're doing image analysis, which has been quite interesting. After that we go onto rhetoric and rhetorical analysis, which will be pretty much the rest of the semester.

[Lokasenna]

I'll always be grateful to my wonderful high school English teacher, who not only nurtured my love of literature but convinced me that going to university was a good idea, and that I should do English there.

As for myself, I really enjoy teaching - I'm looking forward to term really getting going this year.

[cacian]

Ah teaching those were the days.
I do not teach anymore I guess French was hardly a subject children would get excited about. Boys too interested in girls and I was too interested in making sense in a classroom full of teenage anx!
I prefer writing anytime haha.
I gues if I have to chose a fictional teacher character how about

Miss Viola Swamp for a laugh or Miss Nelson Is Missing
Nicey-nice Miss Nelson goes incognito as strict Viola Swamp to teach her students a lesson in appreciation.

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRwfMawanMO8mLdF6RHqlYUwVxz0VO6E A

[Volya]

Ah teaching those were the days.
I do not teach anymore I guess French was hardly a subject children would get excited about. Boys too interested in girls and I was too interested in making sense in a classroom full of teenage anx!
I prefer writing anytime haha.
I gues if I have to chose a fictional teacher character how about

Miss Viola Swamp for a laugh or Miss Nelson Is Missing
Nicey-nice Miss Nelson goes incognito as strict Viola Swamp to teach her students a lesson in appreciation.

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRwfMawanMO8mLdF6RHqlYUwVxz0VO6E A

Not to seem rude, but I find that kids are more interested in learning because they have good teachers, rather than the actual subject being interesting. Although if I'm being honest, no teacher could make french seem fun to me, no matter how good they were :p

[cacian]

Not to seem rude, but I find that kids are more interested in learning because they have good teachers, rather than the actual subject being interesting. Although if I'm being honest, no teacher could make french seem fun to me, no matter how good they were :p

Well you are notbeing rude but French is very hard when it comes to children with special needs.
I found myself doing more babysitting then teaching it was not very nice.
I got on with all my pupils and at times they did try but one could see they were not with it since France did not mean anything to them.
They hardly knew London and some of them did not even what the Thames was/is.

[The Comedian]

Not to seem rude, but I find that kids are more interested in learning because they have good teachers, rather than the actual subject being interesting.

That's been my experience as well, no matter what side of the desk I'm on.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Ditto. I love literature (obviously) and have had some truly horrible literature professors who, if I was never exposed to anyone else, would have never lead me to the love of reading I currently have.

[papayahed]

My sixth grade teacher was my favorite, she was all about science.

My worst teacher was an english teacher who accused me of cheating, what a whorebag. It was on Macbeth, I worked my butt off on the paper and she wrote that I couldn't have done that on my own and I used some book in the Shakespeare lady's library..

[Shevek]

My worst teacher was an english teacher who accused me of cheating, what a whorebag. It was on Macbeth, I worked my butt off on the paper and she wrote that I couldn't have done that on my own and I used some book in the Shakespeare lady's library..

Silly, eh? I've had quite a few teachers in high school who seemed more concerned with whether students plagiarize than produce quality work. The fear of plagiarism backfires at the university level, though. Too many fellow undergrads think citations exist to "avoid plagiarism" because they were told how important it is to cite -- which is true, but that's just one part of citing.

But since this is a teacher appreciation thread, I've had a few English and history teachers who really helped form the interests I have now. Without one amazing grade eight English teacher I do not think I'd be interested in literature, let alone academia. I've had some spectacular profs too who defy the poor image my university gets.

[Helga]

one of my Icelandic literature teachers hated me from day one, she said that she couldn't listen to what I had to say because I smiled to much.

School should be boring....