My favorite teacher was Mr. Craig Knight ~ 5th grade at Bonneville Elementary in Orem, UT (I was in 5th grade, but it was a combined 5th/6th grade classroom.
He was funny, sympathetic, and very enthusiastic about teaching...I doubt he'd been teaching long when he got my class. His wife had long, straight brown hair and they had a little girl. He served a mission somewhere in Asia, and he taught us about humidity.
We had "Current Events" in our classroom. If we clipped a headline story from the newspaper and brought it in and then told the class about the story, we would get extra points for our "table" (4 or 6 desks pushed together to form a table). In his class we made sandpaintings on chipboard (or something like chipboard). We laughed a lot.
I was talking to him when our Principal ran in to tell us that Ronald Reagan (President) had just been shot...I'd heard my Mom talk about Kennedy being shot, and I thought for sure that the world must be coming to an end at that moment. Mr. Milne (the Principal) wheeled in a TV so we could watch the news reports...I left after a while and walked home alone...very frightened, but happy that President Reagan hadn't died.
There was a boy in our class. We were awful to him. I still remember his name, but I'm not going to tell you what it is...maybe he'd find this and he'd fell bad all over again. But one time we were lining up for recess. It had been a bit rainy and cold in the morning, but the skies had cleared and the sun was shining. The rest of us just got in line...but not this boy. He pulled on his big coat, his knitted ski hat (complete with a pompom), his rubber galoshes, a scarf (maybe I'm making that part up), and his big gloves. Mr. Knight said, "[insert boy's name here], don't you think it's a little warm to being wearing all that?" and the boy answered, "No, Mr. Knight. My mom told me to wear these things." And we all laughed and thought he was kind of stupid for not realizing that she probably would have understood...Looking back on it, though, I think this boy must have had a lot of respect for his Mom, and that's why he chose to obey her.
As a teacher, Mr. Knight got to chaperone us at Clear Creek during 6th grade. I think by then I had a full-blown school-girl crush on him. He made me feel good about myself, and that made me very happy.
3 comments:
My favorite teacher was also from Bonneville, Mrs. Miner from 2nd grade!
I think Bonneville was a good school. Maybe it's because we were there for 4 years... :)
I had two favorites. The first was Mrs. Uleberg, my third grade teacher in Stockton, California. She made learning fun. I always wanted to be a teacher because of her. I wanted to be just like her. I used to play school with the kids my mom babysat so I could practice. Over the course of many years I have had the opportunity to emulate her teaching in callings in the church. She passed away when I was in 6th grade from cancer.
The second teacher, Mr. Eads, was my 5th grade teacher in Fresno, California. I had contracted yet another ear infection that left me totally deaf for the second time in my life. I was out of school for a month and he sent my homework assignments home with my sister. When I could return, I still couldn't hear. He moved my desk to the front of the room, by his desk, so he could get my attention when he needed. He began writing the assignments on the board and tapping me on the shoulder so I would look up to see them. As my hearing returned over the period of several months, he would tap me on the shoulder when he wanted to speak to me. I could hear if I was looking at the person and they were speaking slow and loud. When my hearing returned as much as it ever would, I didn't want to return to my seat in the back of the room. I wanted to stay up front by his desk. By that time I had a major crush on him and wanted to be as close as possible. Of course, his being tall, blond, and blue-eyed didn't hurt!
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