The Cool Teacher - February 19

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 95* & 31; PM Psalm 35; Deut. 7:12-16; Titus 2:1-15; John 1:35-42 

Today’s Reflection

Do you remember that teacher that everyone talked about and looked forward to finally having as their teacher? Maybe in elementary school, it was the teacher that everyone hoped they would be assigned to their class when they reached that teacher’s grade. At Port Orange Elementary School, that teacher was Mrs. Dee Esser—she was from New Jersey, she had attitude, she wore cool (for the 1980s) clothes, was a singer and a drummer, and as rumor had it (and the rumor was true) when she was younger she had toured with the Beach Boys. In our magnet program, we all looked forward to finally getting to sixth grade when we, too, would finally have the coolest of the teachers before we moved on to junior high. We were kind of disappointed when we only got to have Mrs. Esser for part of sixth grade, as she went on maternity leave for the second part of the year—but we were excited to be in her class for the year when the coolest of teachers was expecting her first baby.

Maybe in high school, it was the teacher who had the reputation as being challenging but cool, or who sponsored a club that you were in, or just had something about them that drew teenagers’ interest. At my high school, Spruce Creek, that teacher was Mr. Danny Crile. He was the Student Government sponsor, so I had the chance to get to know him through that before I finally got to be in his classroom every day for AP U.S. History in eleventh grade. He was into local politics and acted in the community theatre, always had a tan (we did live by the beach), and students made gave him a hard time for ironing his jeans, which he wore on casual Fridays. He had a reputation as being outspoken about his politics, which at the time were not the same as mine, but I always felt that he was fair and that he just wanted people to understand and care about what was going on in the world. I was fascinated by all the Time magazine covers that he had lined up around the top of the walls all around his classroom. His class was not easy—for the first time in our schooling, we had to learn how to interpret primary historical documents to learn about the past rather than just taking other people’s word for it. But he always kept things lively and he prepared us well for the AP test—I, for one, did better on that AP exam than on any of the others I took.

Or maybe it was in college, the professor you kept hearing good buzz and fascinating stories about from friends and classmates in your major. At Stetson, I was an English major and the professor I kept hearing about from my friend Randy was Dr. Terri Witek. Finally, the second half of my junior year, I had the chance to take a course—the American Long Poem—with Dr. Witek. First of all, she picked amazing, book-length poems for us to read, by poets I had never read before like Rita Dove and Kate Daniels and Mark Strand—and since the course was about American long poems, we also read Walt Whitman, dissecting that longest of long poems, Song of Myself. It’s hard to describe exactly what made her teaching so magical, beyond her own funky poet persona, but I think what stands out for me is her teaching style of drawing out what we, the students, had to say about the poems, rather than forcing her own interpretation onto us. Later, when I was becoming a professor myself, memories of Dr. Witek’s class and how talented she was at drawing out her students gave me a model to emulate in my own teaching practice.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is that cool teacher that everyone wants to be their rabbi. You can picture John and two others standing there as Jesus walks by and they say to each other, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” So, they decided to follow him down the road and Jesus, being Jesus, could sense that he was being followed, so he turned to them and said, “What are you looking for?” And they said they wanted to know where Jesus was staying. Instead of rebuffing them, or telling them to come back and listen to him teach tomorrow, Jesus instead said: “Come and see.” The students followed their teacher, and spent the rest of the day, as I imagine it, listening and learning from this very special rabbi who they had been hearing so much about. Andrew, one of those who followed Jesus and spent the day listening and learning more, then went home to his brother, Simon, and told him to come and see, too. And when Jesus met Simon, he recognized that Simon, too, was meant to follow him—and not only that, but to become the rock on whom his church would be built (which is why he changed his name to Cephas, which means rock). When we hear a good teacher, someone who gives us hope and helps us see the world and our place in it differently, we are meant to spread the Good News. And that is just what John, Andrew, and Simon Peter did.

—Becky+

Questions for Self-Reflection

Recall a teacher who stands out in your memory as one who challenged or inspired you. What was it about this teacher that made their teaching transformative or memorable? What is something you learned as their student that influenced you or that you ended up sharing with others?

Daily Challenge

Track down a teacher or professor from your own education and send them a note to thank them for all that they put into being your teacher. Share with them something that has stuck with you, even years later, from your time as their student.