Across five different universities and professional schools and four degrees, I’ve had some pretty good–and some not so good–teachers. Besides the role of parents and a child’s home life, there is an apparent abundance of evidence–not to mention, common sense–which suggests that the classroom teacher is the most important ingredient in anyone’s educational experience.
Or as the late James A. Garfield–arguably America’s “most intellectually accomplished” President–put it: “Education is me on one end of the log and Mark Hopkins’ (Garfield’s beloved teacher) on the other end.”
In Chaucer’s “Prologue” to the The Canterbury Tales, the Cleric–symbol of the learned person in the Middle Ages–he is described this way: “Gladly would he learn and gladly teach.” I’ve done my share of both over the years, and from that perspective, the best teacher I ever had was when I was in the sixth grade. Even if today one might look upon the small town where and when that was and wonder how anyone might have done much teaching or learning there and then.
However, if Mrs. Sheffer was the best teacher I ever had, her husband–Mr. Sheffer, who taught me in the seventh grade–if he wasn’t the worst, he was among em’.
So what was the difference? Even in the eyes of a youngster . . .
Remembering Mrs. Sheffer, words that come to mind include: “smart, energetic, enthusiastic, organized, demanding and dynamic.” She wasn’t there to be anyone’s friend; she was too interested in teaching children. She made us outline the entire history book, teaching us even more about how than necessarily what to think. That’s called education. Even though she could work math problems faster than anyone else in the room, she knew the difference between intimidation and motivation. I can’t imagine anyone ever taught her how to be a teacher; rather, she seemed born to be one. It had more to do with who she was than even what she did.
Frederick Buechner has defined “vocation” as “when anyone’s great passion and the world’s great need meet.” When it came to teaching the sixth grade, those two characteristics had surely found each other in Mrs. Sheffer. If I know something of what that means now, I was somehow even able to see it back then. And I was just a kid.
By contrast, Mr. Sheffer–my seventh grade teacher–when I think of him, words like “lost, confused, passive and intimidated” come to mind. Even “lazy.” I’m sure he was as smart as his wife, but just as lacking in passion. If Mr. Sheffer was a good person–and he was–it may have been because he lacked the initiative to have ever gotten himself into much of any kind of trouble. As immature as I surely was, I nevertheless got the distinct impression that what he found himself doing was merely because no one else would have wanted him doing anything else anywhere else. I can’t imagine I would have been, for any reason, a depressed seventh grader. But if Mrs. Sheffer’s teaching was inspiring, her husband’s teaching was comparably depressing.
As a child, Mrs. Sheffer had attended a “two-room school” in a rural setting. And she once told us, her sixth-grade class, that when she was a youngster, a major event was when the elected county superintendent of education would pay his annual visit to the school. On this occasion, he would typically present a “problem” for the students to solve. One year, she said, he asked them to spell the world “Egg-Wiped.” That’s how he pronounced it. At which everyone in the school–including the teacher–found themselves bewildered. No one could spell the word. And the superintendent of schools–who was rather impressed with himself–he was incensed. So, before exiting the school in a dramatic gesture, saying nothing further to anyone, he proceeded to write the word “E-G-Y-P-T” on the blackboard.
Over the years, I’ve often asked people, “When you were in school, who was your favorite teacher?” And I’ve never had anybody claim it was the “easiest” one. Just the opposite. They all say it was the most demanding–not demeaning–but every bit as firm as fair. Like Mrs. Sheffer, when I was in the sixth grade, the best teacher anyone could ever have.
