A little background about myself sometimes seeps through these posts. In some ways, it's because this is really a journal for me. I love dearly the people I write about, and I don't want to lose them. I also think that, while the mutual respect I have for many of these people lives, it's nice to spend time thinking about certain people and what has made them so great in my life.
Today I had an experience that really compelled me to write about my friend today. But first, a flashback.
When I was in third grade, my parents noticed that I often came home with papers that said, "Scott forgot his homework today!" My parents called me into their room and told me if I could go a week without getting a slip like that, they'd reward me. I didn't last a single day. That was a habit, or a choice in many ways, that never stopped plaguing me. I was one of those weird kids that wasn't dumb, just lazy. I would ace my tests and get C's in my classes because I didn't do the homework. I graduated high school with a 2.9 GPA (Not stellar, especially compared to my friends, family and future wife) but I got a 30 on the ACT that exceeded many of my peers. Even my 2.9 was a gift of having TONS of Fine Arts classes I got A's in and a great History teacher who gave me C's when I deserved F's (because otherwise I'd have failed to graduate at all).
Today (Thursday) I was in class, and my teacher (a PhD who I think the world of) asked if any of us had started on our homework for Monday. I was the only one in a class of about 14 to raise my hand. The teacher and several students made comments like, "Oh, well duh! No surprise there!" It's amazing, when you view yourself as one thing to have a public perception that you're not that thing, and to have it be relatively earned. It was nice.
The friend I'm writing about today always saw within me the capacity to create that reaction, and she treated me that way when I least deserved it.
This friend is someone who in school would have been my polar opposite academically. She graduated early as a 17 year old, worked her tail off, and was on her own teaching English when she was 21 years old. She is an aspiring writer, and has great talent at what she does. She always shoots for the moon and has great goals. One of my favorite quotes from this friend is, "My life might be normal, but that doesn't mean my thoughts are average." This friend was my journalism teacher in 11th grade, and let a knucklehead like me be the editor of her paper. She dreamed bigger though. She wanted to run an underground newspaper that talked about the things that students cared about, with pen names, and all sorts of code. She wanted to have my friend and I write and then pass it on to younger students as time went on, so it would always remain a 2-4 person job that was part of a select group of thinkers and writers. Cool, right?
This friend was my teacher only one half of one year, but became a friend who I could talk to about anything. She's only six years my senior, and relates well. She would talk about how she viewed people if they were characters in another time and another place. I think the observations she had about people were the kind of thing that inspired me to write this blog. People are absolutely fascinating. We read biographies, blogs, and articles about people. We watch plays and movies that tackle topics of interest. At the end of the day, all the most important things we ever do in society are about people. Sometimes that gets lost in numbers, causes, or other trivial outliers, but everything starts with people. This friend, who I'll call Jewels, understood how priceless and fascinating people are.
Jewels is also a person who has a good grasp on life. She has a really adorable little girl, and is a great mom. Being a mom has always been one of her passions, and she has a good husband she's devoted to. She's handled personal tragedy well, and really weathers tough storms. She has remarkable balance in her life. She's a good teacher because she not only teaches her subject well, she teaches about life through her subject. She's excited about getting kids reading. She loves helping kids write and really exploring things they've never been able to communicate before. She helps kids like me become men like I'm trying to become. It's teachers like her that made me want to be a good teacher. I have other teachers I owe a lot to, but this one is not only an inspiration; I also have the fortune of counting her as a friend.
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