I came from a small town in a suburb of New York City. It was the kind of small town where everyone knew your story. They seemed to know everything about you, who you were, and who they thought you could be. That in itself could be a whole blog post, but I will save that for another day. Back to my story...I came from a small town. The town was so small that the High School and the Junior High School were in the same building and many of the teachers taught all the way through. It was a good thing, and it was a bad thing. I had the same English teacher 4 times, the same math teacher 3 times and the same science teacher twice.
My favorite teacher was Mr. Reuth. He was my Biology teacher in grade 9 and my AP Biology teacher in grade 12. Thinking back on those years, I would imagine that he was a fairly young and inexperienced teacher when I was in 9th grade. I can remember some of those "out of control" days when a few of my classmates would get him sidetracked and off topic and he would tell us weird, but funny stories. I guess they connected to science, like the story of the cadaver that burped in the morgue. I guess that was funny to a bunch of fourteen year olds. I even used some of his stories in my early teaching days as a "hook" to engage my students.
Why was Mr. Reuth my favorite teacher? That is a good question. If you read a recent post, you would know that I did not have much confidence in myself growing up. Mr. Reuth helped me gain my confidence. He gave me my passion for science. I should say, he unleashed it, since I believe that I always had the passion. He never gave us the answers to our questions. The best part about his class and his style of teaching was his ability to make me think. I liked that. It became a challenge every single day. It encouraged me to study, to read, to question the world and that continued from 9th grade through my senior year. In my senior year, in AP Biology, I believed that I wanted to learn more about biological sciences, so much that it became my major in college. I can remember almost every lesson, every dissection, every story...even the ones that made no sense like when he got his car stuck somewhere with his wife. I remember that story because he had a Dodge Dart...not the cool one...the 1970's Dodge Dart. We occasionally poked fun at him about it, but in a nice way, in a "cool" way.
His influence inspired me to later become a teacher, because I learned early on in my college days, that I was better suited to be a teacher, than a doctor. (Another post - I better keep a list of future blog post ideas somewhere) Mr. Reuth inspired me to share my passion for science as a teacher, because that is what he did. When we entered his classroom, he had a smile on his face from ear to ear, because he had the privilege of inspiring our passion for science like his own. He got it. He wasn't the "sage on the stage". I certainly knew that he loved talking about science, teaching science, asking questions and seeing the look in our eyes when we all "got it". Those are the feelings that I tried to inspire when I was a teacher. I wanted my students to share in the love of science. I wanted them to find the awe in it like I did. I wanted them to wonder about the world, and seek out the answers. That was his legacy to me...inspire a new generation of students who want to learn about the world, not because there is a test, but because they just want to know.
This post was inspired by @AppEducationFox
in the #YourEdustory Challenge 2015
Follow me @brian_seligman
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