Teachers Day

Here in Ukraine, the first Sunday in October is a national holiday to honor teachers. They have some sort of half day on the Friday before, and in general it is meant as a day to remember the people who did so much to educate and influence the children of the nation. Our Friday Night English speaking club focused on this topic, and even tied it into Jesus being the most influential teacher.

I would like to take a moment to thank Mrs. Lynn Brant, Mr. Jeff Charbonneau, and Dr. Tom Thompson. They are the three educators that have had the largest impact on my life.
      Branty and Charb helped me to mature in high school. Without their guidance I would be a very different person. Not necessarily a trouble maker, but just a less pleasant person to be around, and possibly a very unsocial person. Charb was recently chosen as the US National Teacher of the year, and he deserves it. However, with all of the congratulations that he has been receiving, I think that Branty has been a little forgotten. She is an excellent teacher, too! I don't want to down play the significant award that Charb has been given, but I do want to up play Mrs. Brant.
     Dr. Thompson is one of the professors that I had at WWU this last year. I had a math course at 8am, 4 days a week, all three quarters. He is retiring from education soon (or so I am told). In my first quarter, I really did not like Dr. Thompson. He was, in my opinion, too strict a grader for the written homework, he taught in a way that I did not understand, and I was afraid to go to his office for help. By the third quarter, I had completely changed. My first assignment (in Fall Quarter) had been a half connected string of scratch work and answers, and my last assignment (in Spring Quarter) was a full fledged document outlining all of the steps required to complete the problems and even some logic here and there to discuss some jump or conclusion. I had gone from one page to 8 front and back.
     The change that Dr. Thompson affected in my was not the same as the one that Charb and Branty had. They had helped me to grow as a person, and I am eternally grateful. Dr. Thompson helped me to grow as a student.


I will say one more thing about teaching before I go. I am a teacher here in Ukraine. I am helping people learn to communicate with a whole new world of people. When I chose to come here I had no idea that my job would be this difficult. I assumed that because English was easy for me to speak, it would be easy for me to teach. I knew on some level that I would struggle with teaching grammar, but I thought on the whole it would be easier. I knew that I would not be a good teacher right away, but I figured I would learn.
     I feel that I am learning to be a good teacher and that I am getting better every day. I struggle with the fact that some words are completely new to those I teach. I cannot define them all, and that is my largest struggle. Because of this expereince here, I have more than a students graditude to Mrs. Brant, Mr. Charbonneau, and Dr. Thompson, I have a teachers respect for the amazing job that they did for me.

Branty, Charb, Dr. Thompson, if you are reading this, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.