Althouse: "I ask my class for a gift – to help me while I’m grading papers."

May 2, 2008

"I ask my class for a gift – to help me while I’m grading papers."

"I like music, but I don’t listen to the radio much and I don’t follow music trends. Write down a title of a song I should download and listen to. Put your name by it and I’ll associate it with you when you’re long gone into the attorney world."

For the annals of incredibly nice teachers.

21 comments:

vbspurs said...: My favourite grade school teacher was Mrs. Carol Baker.

She used to bake us Battenburg cakes for tea, which we took outside if the weather was fine, and memorably, she pitched a tent inside the classroom, as she read chilling Edgar Allen Poe stories to us.

I don't think a single person ever forgets their favourite teacher.

I fancy this Polish dude will live long in the annals of their students' memories.

Cheers,
Victoria; 5/2/08, 12:26 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Is "Nina" a man's name in Britain? Not to be confused with Nino.; 5/2/08, 12:30 PM
Simon said...: Ann - not so far as I know. If I head "Nina" I'd assume female.; 5/2/08, 12:36 PM
vbspurs said...: Is "Nina" a man's name in Britain? Not to be confused with Nino.

No, but I can tell you who the ninny is here.

*points to self*

I was lost in my reveries. Sorry Nina!

Cheers,
Victoria; 5/2/08, 12:43 PM
reader_iam said...: What a cool idea, and I love that post.

I'll bet she's a great friend, too.; 5/2/08, 1:13 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: "I ask my class for a gift – to help me while I’m grading papers."

And that's a song? If they're anything like the papers I've seen, a bottle of whiskey would be more to the point.

vbspurs said...
My favourite grade school teacher was Mrs. Carol Baker.

If Carol Baker had been my grade school teacher she'd have been my favorite too.; 5/2/08, 1:20 PM
Trooper York said...: "I ask my class for a gift – to help me while I’m grading papers.....Put your name by it and I’ll associate it with you when you’re long gone into the attorney world."

Ann Althouse said...
Actually, I did think about dildos at one point; 5/2/08, 1:48 PM
Trooper York said...: See what happens when you quote people out of context.; 5/2/08, 1:48 PM
Richard Dolan said...: This teacher sounds very sweet. But a classroom is rarely filled with students who are so eager that they don't need prodding, often of the blunt variety. Getting kids out of their comfort zone, getting students to engage with challenging material, often requires telling those students things they don't want to hear -- i.e., that the student's work is mediocre at best because he's coasting and needs to ramp up the effort. I think the best teachers I had maintained a certain distance -- they were approachable, but school wasn't a social event and the teacher wasn't trying to be my friend. They were willing to give of their time, but they also made it clear that they weren't interested in wasting time if the student wasn't going to put in the effort.; 5/2/08, 2:01 PM
reader_iam said...: Carol Baker was the name of my best girlfriend when I was in elementary school. She lived just down the street in Monmouth, IL. Definitely the wrong side of the Atlantic, but it's nice to have her pop into my head in response to Victoria's comment. I haven't seen in her 35 years; I wonder what ever happened to her.; 5/2/08, 2:18 PM
AllenS said...: I'd bring you a nice red apple.; 5/2/08, 2:28 PM
KCFleming said...: When I was in residency I wrote to three teachers who had had a profound effect on me, one from grade school and 2 from high school. They all made college work and beyond so much easier for me.

I doubted they remembered me among the thousands of faces passing through their classroom over the decades. A few years ago, one of them died, in his late 70s. At the funeral, his daughter told me he spoke of that letter to her, and not goofy as I'd feared, so I guess it was worth it.; 5/2/08, 2:29 PM
rhhardin said...: It's also, schoolwise, Prom night, to judge from neighbor activity before the storm comes through.; 5/2/08, 4:39 PM
lurker2209 said...: Hm...maybe I should try this with my organic chem lab. It might make grading lab reports and lab notebooks less tedious.

Kids these days really have horrible handwriting. Gosh, I sound way older than my 24 year old, generation millennial self. But I think there was a bigger emphasis on penmanship in first grade in 1990, than in 1995.; 5/2/08, 4:54 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: My husband went to a very very tiny remote rural school, for a few years, when his family was in the logging business. There were maybe 30 kids from first grade through high school and the two teachers who came to live in the logging camp were a young married couple from Georgia. They were probably not much older than the high school students themselves.

In a one room school house they teachers did everything and had full permission from the parents to keep order in the classroom anyway they could. (Good old fashioned discipline.... get whupped in school and then again when you get home for getting in trouble.) Fortunately, they didn't need to exercise that discipline more than a couple of times, but my husband assured me it was "memorable".

Because the community was so small, the parents became close social friends with the teachers and the teachers became very close to the students. Every few years the husband (now a widower) makes a trip from Georgia to Oregon to visit and it is like a family reunion. Most of the children (now middle aged) and the parents who are still alive get together.

The two young teachers were inspirational to all of their students and encouraged my husband and others in his school (many of whose parents hadn't even graduated from high school)to go on to college through correspondence over the years, long after they no longer lived in the area. If not for this personal interest in their students, many of them would never have gone on to become successful as they have done. (Good thing too, since the logging industry is a dead end) Teachers like these deserve a statue in their honor.; 5/2/08, 5:05 PM
titusisnow pregnant-ohmygod said...: Have you been a good teacher or a bad teacher?

What do you think you deserve for a gift or maybe a punishment?; 5/2/08, 5:55 PM
titusisnow pregnant-ohmygod said...: I have been a naughty boy and need to be punished.

I promise I won't tell my mommy that you are punishing me.

It will be our little secret.; 5/2/08, 5:56 PM
Ron said...: If Althouse's students are willing to bribe me, I will sing their praises in the comment section of a very high traffic blog! Looks good on the CV!; 5/2/08, 6:05 PM
vbspurs said...: Carol Baker was the name of my best girlfriend when I was in elementary school. She lived just down the street in Monmouth, IL. Definitely the wrong side of the Atlantic, but it's nice to have her pop into my head in response to Victoria's comment. I haven't seen in her 35 years; I wonder what ever happened to her.

Good Lord! It would be magnificent if it were the same person.

She was a very young woman (and I remember thinking that, even aged 8), I'm guessing in her very early 20s, with a Princess Diana-mop cut, with gloriously strawberry blonde hair like mine, and huge saucers for blue eyes.

Ballpark, Reader_Iam?

Cheers,
Victoria; 5/2/08, 8:55 PM
Maggie Goff said...: I like Nina. She has a sense of peace and goodness about her. I'd like to meet her in person some day.; 5/3/08, 12:43 AM
Joan said...: Nina is a gem. I visit Ocean every day.

One thing to keep in mind, Nina is a law professor. The members of the particular class she is speaking of are graduating, so they are all well into their 20s.; 5/3/08, 6:04 PM