Who is the best teacher you have ever had? What constitutes great teaching.?The best teacher i ever had taught me so much about my craft but also how to live my life better. He had a sort of irreverence toward authority. the best teacher i ever had encouraged me to leave school! I wasn’t doing very well in school in fact i was failing. He said “ You’re wasting your time. You should do something more constructive. Something that is going to lead you to where you want to go. He taught me how to play to my strengths and that was possibly the greatest gift i ever received from any one.
I never set out to be a teacher. I didn’t realise that my best teachers were in fact teachers. How often are we conscious of what we learn? I thought a teacher was some one to be feared, like my grade 3 teacher who slapped my bare legs for putting my book that she was marking in her stamp pad.
Now that I am a teacher I am reminded of the best ones. “ i sound like Dave right now….” is constantly in the back of my mind when i’m trying to make someone feel welcome or push someone out of their comfort zone. I remember asking him whether he believed in an after life and he said "I believe in the interconnectedness of all things, If I make a connection you, then a part of me stays with you and lives on it that way. How true.