Teachers as Mentors

One Bad Apple

I was always fortunate enough to have teachers that cared about teaching. But, there was one case where I had a teacher who ate their lunch during class. We learned nothing in this class. Back in the 1980s, I had one teacher who was supposed to teach Spanish. She would sit down instead and have her Chinese takeout. The teacher would tell us that this was the only time she had available for her lunch since she was studying for her master’s degree.

I remember feeling robbed. I was being robbed of a good education. I felt angry that she would do that to us. She stole our time to take her lunch breaks. This teacher didn’t care if we learned or not. She figured it was just a class of inner city kids I was teaching they’re not going to amount to nothing. I used to hate Spanish class because it was a waste of time. She would hand out assignments without really teaching us. We had to learn on our own. This was before the Internet and smartphones. We had to rely on encyclopedias and Spanish books. This teacher had students that were failing because they didn’t learn the basics of Spanish. That year, that teacher gave us passing grades. She had passed the entire class. Nowadays, teachers can’t get away with eating in the classroom. There is video now, if a student decided to film the unusual activity and post it online, that teacher’s career would be over.

Honors

I was lucky for the most part, I had very good teachers that cared about their profession. The teachers went out of their way to teach us the courses they were supposed to teach us. I was in Honors class which had a more stringent curriculum geared towards a college education. These classes prepared us for a Regents High School Diploma where we had to take Regents exams to qualify for this special Diploma. I graduated with Honors and a Regents Diploma. Thanks to the hard work of the teachers in my classes. They inspired me to work hard and to reach a goal. At the time, I was working at Sears Department Store part-time. I was failing Sequential Math 6 which included algebra and calculus. I had a really hard time. Tutoring helped me a lot, my tutor was a student from Vietnam. He taught me algebra and calculus. I passed with a lot of hard work. My tutor was from Vietnam and he had an amazing story to tell. His family had fled Vietnam in the 1970s with a 100 dollars to their name. My tutor was a Senior at the time when he described how his family fled and escaped the Viet Cong in the 1970s, he was six years old at the time. As a tutor he was amazing. He easily solved problems and could talk me through it. My tutor not only taught me math lessons but he taught me life lessons. His family had risked it all to escape Vietnam and come to America. They did not know what to expect once they arrived in America, so they worked hard to give their kids a good education. This motivated me to work harder on my studies.

Dedication

Mr. McLoughlin was our English and Home Room Teacher. He was a kind elderly man in his 60’s when he taught us. He had been teaching for over 20 years but his dream profession was to be a lawyer. He would often tell us about his large family and he always told us that he married his best friend. Mr. McLoughlin suppressed his dreams to become a lawyer in order to teach NYC students English. He was good at teaching. He was set to retire but he decided to wait the extra month in order to walk out the graduating class of 1988. He wanted to see us graduate that year and would not retire. After graduation, Mr. McLoughlin decided to pursue his dream of being a lawyer by taking a job as a law clerk and continuing his studies. He always said “it was never too late”

I’d like to think that there are still teachers like Mr. McLoughlin around. Teachers that dedicate their lives to shape future lives in their teachings.