Thanks for the Lessons (Ten Things of Thankful)

(Because some people like Blogger and some like WordPress, i am putting the same content at both.  If you would prefer to read this on the other site, it is linked here.) 

It's one of my favorite days of the week, the day to list things for which i am thankful.

This past week was the Friends of the Library book sale.  Sweetie and i managed to carve out one hour between jobs, and while perusing the selections, i got to thinking about all the things i'd learned from teachers all those years ago.  So i am thankful to some of the fabulous and not-so-fabulous teachers in my life for what i learned from them, things to do and things not to do.

First was Grandma, who taught me to read before i even went to school using the "Listen and Learn with Phonics" set.  It was such fun and i wanted to be able to read so much that i would ask for more than one lesson a day.  Heaven bless her, she let me go at my own speed, and i have not stopped since.

My Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. T, taught me how to humiliate a person.  It was awful.   One little girl in our classes talked and chatted and could not be quiet.  Today she would be drugged into silence, but Mrs. T finally one day called her to the front of the room and taped her mouth shut.  To this day i can see the tears running down the girls cheeks as she had to turn from that big teacher's desk, several pieces of masking tape over her mouth, and walk past all of us back to her desk.  The look of shame on her face disturbs me when i remember it.  Mrs. T taught me something she never intended, that humiliation is the worst way to try to teach, and i am grateful for the lesson.

Mrs. F taught me spelling.  She was strict but fair, and i still remember her saying, "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking."

Mrs. W taught me to hate math.  Though i've made peace with the multiplications tables now, she was mean and made math a horror with her biting tongue if you dared ask a question or did the slightest thing wrong.  She taught me that you can make a fun subject loathsome by the way you teach it.  When i was home educating my kids in math, i did everything i could to make it fun and something they would want to learn.  (It only partially worked, as Sweetie has math phobia, too, and didn't try to hide it.)

Mr. Z, ah, how we all loved him!  He rewarded us for good and timely work each day by reading aloud from The Hobbit.  He timed it so that we finished the book on the last day of school.  He taught me that a great teacher finds ways to motivate students even when the work is not always fun.

Mrs. G was a science teacher, and what a science teacher!  Experiments in her class left us wanting to learn more, and she was always letting us do hands on learning.  She fostered a love of science in me that i still have.

Mrs. C taught me to read between the lines and figure out what angle a teacher is using in framing questions.  This has stood me in good stead any time i had to take a standardized test.  She did it by framing questions in such odd and peculiar ways that she almost flunked half of the class.  Since i was one of those who figured out her odd ways, i enjoyed learning history from her, but even more i enjoyed learning different ways that people think.

Mr. K never made any expectations clear.  He would give an assignment, and then when he talked about it later, the parameters would have changed.  If you went to speak to him and get clarification, he would tell you he was looking for X.  When you gave him X in the assignment, he would tell you that you had done it wrong, what he was really looking for was Y.  He would even ask how come we had done the assignment a certain way instead of another way, when we had just done it the way he'd told us.  He taught me that if you don't tell people what you want plainly, or you change your mind between times, you won't get what you want.

Ms. R taught me to touch type, and i am so thankful, especially when i sit and type while looking either at the screen or across the room, and Sweetie is yelling, "How can you do that!"  It really impresses him, and i don't know why.

Sister RM was another science teacher who could inspire learning in fabulous ways.  She could also be quite tyrannical, and taught me chemistry, physics and that ruling with an iron fist just makes people resentful or unmotivated and depressed to the point where they do not care any more.

Ms. P took my love of Shakespeare and poetry and gave it critical and analytical backbone.

Thank you to the great teachers in my life for the great lessons, and thank you to the awful ones for showing me what not to do.

Josie Two Shoes hosts Ten Things of Thankful every week, and trust me, it is a worth while exercise.  Just try it and see if counting the things for which you are thankful doesn't change your outlook.

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Today is:

Bonza Bottler Day™

Day of Remembrance for Prince Igor -- Asatru/Slavic Pagan Calendar

Floral City Strawberry Festival -- Floral City, FL, US (fun for all, through tomorrow)

Heart-Accelerating Sodium-Enriched Cold Cuts Day / National Cold Cuts Day -- started, i would think, by someone who has no intention of letting anything healthy past his/her lips

Hina Matsuri -- Japan (Doll Festivals throughout the country, where women and girls dedicate dolls to shrines which are then floated out to sea to take away evil and sicknesses that afflict women)

Iditarod Sled Dog Race - Last Great Race on Earth® begins -- Anchorage to Nome, AK, US (1,000 miles along the historic Iditarod Trail)

If Pets Had Thumbs Day -- because if you are going to imagine something silly today, it might as well be this; sponsored by Wellcat Holidays

I Want You to be Happy Day -- a day to devote some time to making someone else truly happy about something

International Omega-3 Awareness Day

Joshi-no-Sekku -- Shinto (festival to honor girls)

Liberation Day/National Day -- Bulgaria

Marriage of the March Nymphs -- Fairy Calendar

Martyr's Day -- Malawi

Mother's Day -- Georgia

National Anthem Day -- US (current US anthem adopted this date in 1931) 

National Mulled Wine Day

Natural Bridge Battle Reenactment -- Tallahassee, FL, US (Civil War reenactment; through tomorrow)

North Dakota Winter Show -- Valley City, ND, US (world's largest crop show, eight-breed cattle show, rodeos, tractor pulls, entertainment, and more for tons of family fun; through next Saturday)

Peach Blossom Day - coincides with the start of the Peach Blossom Festival around this time of year in Hunan, China, where you celebrate the beauty of peach blossoms, and girls celebrate being girls

Philadelphia Flower Show -- Philadelphia, PA, US (largest flower show in the US; through Mar. 11)

Saint Piran's Day Celebration -- Kansas City, KA, US (celebration of the patron saint of Cornwall and Cornish peoples, as well as the patron of tin miners, sponsored by the Greater Kansas City Cornish Society)

Sportsmen's Day -- Egypt

Stop Bad Service Day -- spread around the internet by someone who got lousy service

St Casimir' Eve / Kaziukas Fair -- Vilnius, Lithuania (traditional craft fair dates back to the 17th century, celebrating Lithuania's patron saint; through tomorrow)

St. Cunegunda's Day (Patron of Bamberg, Germany; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Poland)

St. Winnal's Day (First comes David, Next comes Chad, Then comes Winnal, roaring mad! -- Traditional English saying about the storminess of March 3; St. Winwaloe or Winnal was the Christianized version of the Teutonic Aegir, god of the sea and controler of weather)

Thanks to the Maple Festival -- Iroquois (date approximate, held when sap began flowing, usually early March)

Anniversaries Today:

Florida becomes the 27th US state, 1845

Colegio Militar of Portugal is founded, 1803

Birthdays Today:

Jessica Biel, 1982

David Faustino, 1974

Julie Bowen, 1970

Jackie Joyner-Kersee, 1962

Herschel Walker, 1962

Ira Glass, 1959

Miranda Richardson, 1958

Tim Kazurinsky, 1950

Caroline Lee Bouvier Radziwill, 1933

Doc Watson, 1923

Diana Barrymore, 1921

James Doohan, 1920

Jean Harlow, 1911

Matthew Bunker Ridgway, 1895

Norman Bethune, 1890

Alexander Graham Bell, 1847

George Pullman, 1831

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Moonlighting"(TV), 1985

"Goodtime Charley"(Musical), 1975

"The Lion in Winter"(Play), 1966

"Mr Wizard"(TV), 1951

"Juno and the Paycock"(Play), 1924

Time Magazine, 1923

"Carmen"(Opera), 1875

"Symphony No. 3 in A minor(Scottish)"(Mendelssohn Op.56), 1842

"Symphony No. 101 in D major(The Clock)"(Haydn), 1794

Today in History:

The Statute of Rhuddlan incorporates the Principality of Wales into England, 1284

The Olympic Theatre, designed by Andrea Palladio, is inaugurated in Vicenza, 1585

The first amphibious landing of the United States Marine Corps begins the Battle of Nassau, 1776

The first US Jewish governor, David Emanuel, takes office in Georgia, 1801

The US declares war on Algeria for taking US prisoners and demanding tribute, 1815

The Missouri Compromise, an attempt to keep the US half Slave and half free, is passed by the US Congress, 1820

The Battle of Pelee Island takes place, Ontario, Canada, 1838

Tsar Alexander II emancipates the serfs of Russia, 1861

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the founding member of the HSBC Group, opens, 1865

The first ever organized indoor game of ice hockey is played in Montreal, Canada as recorded in The Montreal Gazette, 1875

Georges Bizet's opera Carmen receives its première at the Opéra Comique in Paris, 1875

Bulgaria regains its independence from Ottoman Empire, 1878

Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood becomes the first female attorney to argue before the US Supreme Court, 1879

The US Geological Survey is created, 1879

Anne Sullivan arrives to begin teaching Helen Keller, 1887

Tsar Nicholas II of Russia agrees to create an elected assembly, the Duma, 1905

Toronto's Dr Banting & Dr Best announce discovery of insulin, 1921

Time Magazine begins publication, 1923

The United States officially adopts The Star-Spangled Banner as its national anthem, 1931

Oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia, 1938

In Mumbai, Mohandas Gandhi begins to fast in protest of the autocratic rule in India, 1939

Jackie Brenston, with Ike Turner and his band, records "Rocket 88", often cited as "the first rock and roll record", at Sam Phillips' recording studios in Memphis, Tennessee, 1951

An amateur video captures the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers, 1991

The tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere, Sky Tower in downtown Auckland, New Zealand, opens after two-and-a-half years of construction, 1997

Citizens of Switzerland narrowly vote in favor of their country becoming a member of the United Nation, 2002

Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly an airplane non-stop around the world solo without refueling, 2005

A 2-year old Mississippi girl born with HIV/AIDS is pronounced HIV negative after receiving treatment for the virus within 30 hours after her birth, 2013