The Least Influential Teacher

A random writing prompt from the WritingFix website (no editing):
"Who taught you close to nothing? Write about the teacher who had the least impact on you."



In 8th grade, I was the ultimate nerd. I loved school and, since I was inept at sports, my competitive nature was fueled by grades. How well I did on quizzes, was I the highest scorer on the test, and did I get straight A’s were my benchmarks in the world as I knew it. I wasn’t that great in technical subjects, like math, but ones which demanded my own thoughts and opinions were the classes where I excelled.

History was my favorite because it was the closest to meeting that criteria. Yes, I had to memorize dates and places, but the wonderful thing about history was the fact that you had to analyze why certain events happened. And then, you could wonder if certain events, which seemed small at the time, hadn’t happened, what would the world be like today? And were bad events almost necessary to get us to where we are now? Wonderful, philosophical questions came from the study of history and I was an ardent student.

So, imagine my disgust when, on my first day of 8th grade, in walked Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith was the new wrestling coach and was “made” to also teach. And he got history as his subject. I spent the year horrified as he put the Battle of Normandy in Britain, insisted FDR served two terms, and only wanted the basics of dates and places. There were no philosophical discussions in Mr. Smith’s class, except in his discussion of the previous night’s wrestling meet.

He was even worse in classroom management. He seemed like he wanted to be our peer instead of teacher. So dealing with him was exactly like dealing with a friend you would have in junior high. One day, you were his best friend and could do no wrong. The next, you had committed some unknown grievance and were made to sit in the hallway.

The final straw for me was the class trip we were supposed to take. I was told one day before I wouldn’t be able to go because my name was on the board. Earlier in the year, Mr. Smith had decided a “Lord of the Flies” approach to teaching was needed and told students that if anyone bothered them, they could write that student’s name on the board and said student would be punished. I pointed out that the date my name was written on the board was on a day I wasn’t even in class but was at a band competition. He thought for a minute and then said, “Well, that doesn’t matter. Your name was on the board and you can’t go.”

I wished horrible things for Mr. Smith on that day, or at least as horrible as a twelve-year old’s mind can go. Mainly, I just wished he wasn’t my teacher anymore, or anyone else’s teacher for that matter. He was young, athletic, loved wrestling, and obviously didn’t want to be in the classroom. Why couldn’t he just go away?

Fast forward fifteen years and I was an assistant administrator of a nursing home. Our facility had been advertising for a housekeeper and we hadn’t received any good applicants. I had gotten back from a short vacation and went to the administrator’s office. She told me she had finally found a new housekeeper and he was in my office filling out paperwork and would be ready for me to give him an orientation to the facility policies and rules. I walked into my office and my stomach hit the floor. There, sitting in one of the chairs and obviously struggling with the paperwork, was Mr. Smith. The years had not been kind. When he looked up at me, I didn’t see any kind of recognition in his eyes and thought maybe I got it wrong. We started talking and it was obvious that drug use had taken most his faculties and even simple sentences were difficult. I kept glancing at his paperwork and there was his name all over it. It had to be him. Finally, I looked at his resume; there it was, the schooling and degree needed for him to have the past I remembered.

We both ignored the elephant in the room and I took care of his paperwork and orientation. It was strange to tell Mr. Smith, now called by his first name, to clean up the various messes of a nursing home. My twelve-year old heart would have loved to be in the position to order Mr. Smith around, but my twenty-seven year old heart wondered how did he become like this?

Finally, one day, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I saw Mr. Smith in the hallway and started to say, “You probably don’t remember me, but I was a student of yours…” He interrupted me and stated that he did remember. He realized it on the first day. He didn’t give a lot of details of his life since then. But, at one point, he did put his head down and quietly said, “Well, I wasn’t that good of a teacher anyway.”

There was a long silence. I didn’t know what to say. I know a part of him needed to hear that, yes, you were good back then; at one point in your life, you were good at something, Mr. Smith. But, I couldn’t do it. He wasn’t a good teacher because he didn’t have any interest in it. I just mumbled something about needing to get back to my office and the paperwork.

I still wonder what I should have said.