Teachers

Today is Thursday. And Thursdays are my French class. The teacher is a really great guy, always has the interests of the students...and ever so patient. He doesn't get paid enough to be with us sometimes. Yeah. We can be that bad at the language.

This class was actually the first class of the new semester for us. After Christmas break, after all the drinking and eating, and non-studying. One of the first questions he asked was whether or not we opened our French books and he wanted honesty. Wow. That's deviating from the "how was your break" question. Everyone answered and basically only 1 person actually studied. Good on them, bad on the rest of us. But Christmas is a crazy time and I just didn't have the energy.

Well, he was happy we answered honestly, then we all got our asses kicked. Holy smokes, full on lecture how studying is important and how he feels guilty when we don't well. He wonders if he's not taught us well or if he didn't teach us something. As a teacher, it's his job and his hopes for us to do well. But he can only do so much if we don't do our part. "I know you have lost some motivation and are not studying nearly or at all. There is no point leaving your French books in the office and not looking at them. It's a waste of your time and mine. I can tell you guys didn't open your books because I marked your exams. Yes, they were THAT bad. Your test scores totally reflected how much you studied. From now on, this is how it's going to be in this class if you want to learn."

So imagine my surprise when I got 88%. Hey, it's not 100% and I'm not bragging here. After getting the lecture, I thought I had failed miserably. Many of the people did do poorly in the exam and we're talking about close to failing. However, some of these folks weren't at half of the classes or they didn't study. This isn't a criticism. These folks fully admitted it.

At the end of the class, I was pretty whipped. But my teacher wanted to speak to me. Yeesh. Am I getting another ass whooping? Hee hee...he was so funny...he asked me what he thought of his lecture. Was it too strict? Did he come across as a changed teacher? And honestly, no. If he didn't care, he wouldn't have said anything. And I explained that I really felt that this French class was a privelage, not a right or entitlement. Then he laughed. "Good, we are on the same page. This is our little secret. I did all that not because I don't like all of you. I just wanted to motivate and scare some people in the class so that they will do better. Some really just need a small push right now. So if they come to you and ask why I am being mean, tell them it's because the teacher wants them to do well."

Now, if we could have all had great teachers like this throughout our lives.