I went to a blogger interactive event this weekend, and you’ll never guess what happened! But, go ahead and guess. I’ll wait.
Does anyone have the Jeopardy music we can play while we wait?
No? Well, just hum to yourselves then.
.
..
…
….
…..
….
…
..
.
Done? Good. All of your guesses were wrong! I said you wouldn’t guess it!
At the gathering, we were given prompts to write about on our blogs. You may have guessed that. But, what you wouldn’t have guessed is that the prompts were the idea of, and provided by, a non-blogger who crashed the event! How funny, right? All those creatives in one place and it was someone else who came up with the idea.
Well, I thought it was funny.
Anyway, my prompt was: Which school age teacher encouraged/inspired you [me] and how?
Eek!
I hated school. I thought I was smarter than most of my teachers. I don’t remember much about elementary school beyond only liking recess. All of my memories of junior high are bad: embarrassing school projects, bullies, awkward crushes, awkward moments in general. I guess I have some good memories from high school, but not many of them are actually school related. And I can’t pull a teacher from the list that was encouraging or inspiring. I had some good teachers. I had some teachers I liked. But, there weren’t any that made something inside me click and say, “that’s what I want to do,” or, “that’s what I should be doing,” or, “life makes perfect sense now,” or anything else along those lines.
Maybe I was just a terrible student? I was definitely not very concerned or interested with what was going in the classrooms. Most of the time I was chapters ahead, reading on my own, solving that night’s homework, studying for the test in the next class, etc…
Perhaps that is my loss. Perhaps if I had paid attention than I would have seen that some of my teachers were more than they appeared and I could have drawn inspiration from them. I’m not big on what-if games though.
Perhaps I’m taking the prompt too literally… It asked for “school age teacher,” not “school teacher.” So, I could include scout leaders, and soccer coaches, and music teachers, and family members, and every other teacher from my life, right?
Which doesn’t really help. I guess I just remember myself as a petulant Mr. Know-It-All. I thought I was where it was at. Or something like that. Of course, I was wrong, but it took me a long time to realize that.
So, default answer, then has to be my family. They supported and encourage me and offered me the opportunities to learn on my own terms. They fought for me when I had disagreements with teachers. They gave me the freedom to express my creativity. They supported my athletic pursuits long after it should have been clear that I was never going to be very good at the sport I loved.
They showed me how to be a contributing member of society, how to be a good parent, how to be a good sibling, how to continue to learn and grow outside of the confines of school, how to have fun, how to be serious, how to live in this world.
And for that, I can never thank them enough.
……..
Here are the links to the other bloggers who showed up this weekend. You should check them out and see what their prompts were:
Deb: http://deborah-bryan.com/
Dani: http://aheartonthematter.wordpress.com/
The Queen: http://mytwistedyarn.wordpress.com/
Grayson: http://graysonqueen.wordpress.com/
Rara: http://rarasaur.wordpress.com/
The Matticus Kingdom 
Awesome. The Little Prince will be served well by the lessons you learned 🙂
Hooray!
Ha – except for loathing Jr High – we had the opposite experiences at school!
That’s good. I’ve heard rumors about people who actually enjoyed school. It’s good to finally set those rumors down as fact.
I was probably an anomaly…
Nope, Guap just said he had some inspirational teachers too.
It’s a thing! Apparently, … who knew?!
🙂
After reading the prompt and before reading your answer, I picked your mom. I think she obviously had the most impact on you as far as academia is concerned. On a side note, there are a couple teachers that I really cared about from school, because they cared about me. But none had the kind of impact that you hear people talking about. None inspired me more than my own explorations did. The only one that stands out was my ceramics teacher, and that is because she was there for me emotionally when my mom got sick. Otherwise, meh. I think I also checked out in school and wasn’t as involved as I could have been. I know, that doesn’t sound right. Emily not involved or engaged? But it is true. School was social for me. That being said, you were probably my favorite thing about school. I am grateful we are still friends and that I can see you and your family grow. Words can’t express how much that means to me.
😀
I know we had good teachers. I know they cared about their jobs and cared about their students, and were passionate about what they were teaching…. there were a few in there. But, yeah, none of them had that spark – or, perhaps, none of them had a spark that was meant for us…
Hooray for being friends! And for making school a bit more bearable. 😉
What a gift to have a good supportive family. 🙂
It was a gift, yes…
And I’ve been debating what else to say for the last five minutes.
I know you long for that kind of relationship with your blood family. But, your family doesn’t deserve you. It is their loss that they are the way they are. And the encouraging and support I received from mine are out there for you from so many other places… Think of all the encouragement and support you’ve gotten from the blogosphere community, from your hubby, etc…
Thanks DJ, I didn’t mean to make you at all uncomfortable, I’m truly happy for those who do have good families. I wish more did. I’m always thrilled and have a big smile on my face when I hear of someone like yourself that does. I also think that the Little Prince is a very lucky little guy!
You didn’t make me uncomfortable, my friend. I just wasn’t sure how to articulate what I wanted to say. We’ve been here before, you and I. 😉
Thank you!
Thank you!!
Anytime. 🙂
Wow, I’m surprised (and saddened) you didn’t have any great teachers you look back on.
I had a second grade teacher I had a crush on. She was very cute.
and I had two high school teachers – one was biology, the other was history or social studies – who taught me a lot about attitude and carriage.
I still practice some of the lessons they (unwittingly) taught me.
Probably was just timing, or just me entirely. I had good teachers. None of them “spoke to me” though. Maybe I wasn’t listening. Maybe they were speaking to someone who needed to hear it more…
Recess is the 5 y/o’s answer to what was your favorite part of the day every single night. Lol.
5 year old? That’s still how I answer that question….
Oh, man! Can you believe I’d already forgotten about my prompt? Something else to mull over for a future day’s blog. In the meantime, I enjoyed reading the more-than-one-sentence response to your prompt. 🙂
Hah!
I thought about just sticking with – I was inspired by all my teachers because I didn’t want to end up like them, but decided I’d get too much flack for that and have to write the rest anyway, so might as well get the whole story out to start with.
And you can’t forget about your prompt! You had one you didn’t want to give up! I mean, I’m going to steal it anyway, but I can’t steal it until you post about it! 😉
So sorry I missed seeing all of you! We didn’t go camping (yet) but hub was a bit under the weather.
Oh no!
I was hoping your absence meant you were getting to go camping! I’m sad you missed both. Hopefully The Cap. is already on the mend.
I think I’m just confused as to what a school aged teacher is? What kind of school are we talking about?
Tee hee hee.
But I think it is the teachers we older parents look at who are trying to teach our children. Jacob had a math teacher who was right out of college. She’d been a cheer leader and tried to lead the kids in math cheers. She would make a great character in one of those Nichelodeon shows where all the teachers are idiots. She was. She didn’t call it “homework” she called it “home enjoyment”
That’s hilarious. Home enjoyment my left foot. It was teacher’s like that who made me stop paying attention in class in the first place.
Oh wow. You’d think someone fresh outta school would know better than to try to make homework fun.
You’d also think someone who managed to get into and then graduate from University of Virginia would have a brain. But apparently, in this case, it wasn’t true.
I had to word that carefully — that’s where my husband went!
Haha. Some people know how to work the system.
Hahahahaha
Dang. I should have read it that way too. I could have taken this whole thing a completely different direction.
You can always do another post.
What the what?
Another post? What am I, some kind of oft-posting blogger extraordinaire?
Exactly that.
Oh, well, in that case. I’ll think about it. 😛
Think about what?
Doing another post. Aren’t you paying attention?
It’s not like you’re busy over in Stuphland. Emily’s got that today, right?
Still consuming coffeh. Does not compute.
Consume faster!
But don’t burn your mouth.
That’s why I’m doing it slowly!
Surely sipping satisfies, but, coffeh chugging conquers curmudgeonly mornings.
Too much awesomeness at once might kill me. Or something.
That’s not possible.
It might be…you never know.
I know everything. I’m a Jester. It’s part of our training.
Jester. You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Inconceivable!
Case in point.
In that case, I challenge you to a battle of the wits.
I’ve already won.
Hah! You only think you’ve won. I switched glasses while you weren’t looking.
Actually, I was going for the “you’re not properly equipped for a battle of wits” route, when you just deftly proved by putting on my glasses. Now, neither of us can see.
Seeing is overrated anyway.
Not really. If I couldn’t see I’d have no way to read the silly banter.
Lean closer and closer to the screen until something comes into focus.
I might be able to read the screen that way without my glasses/contacts… but could probably only read one letter at a time.
Exactly why you shouldn’t have switched our glasses.
Okay, okay, we can switch back.
I’m getting a headache anyway.
See?? (See what I did there?)
Hah.
I do now.
Sweet!
Right on!
i think that’s so cool that you had a chance to go and mingle with other bloggers. as for the prompt, maybe you really didn’t have a teacher that really helped you or you felt close to. happy your family was there to step in and support you )
Family to the rescue!
Wasn’t the first time, won’t be the last.
And, yep, the blogger gathering was a lot of fun. I’d definitely go again if there was near me.
Sad that you didn’t have any standout teachers. But since you had the good family angle, I guess we’ll keep letting you entertain us on your blog!
Woohooo!!
Thanks! 😉
I loved most of my teachers… and school. But my parents were alright teachers, too, I guess. 😉 I love that you did your prompt already! I think for mine, I need to get drunk… you know. For research.
It’s the best way to do the research for a prompt about being drunk. Really. And, if you need some other participates in the experiment/research, let me know. I’d be happy to volunteer.
Well, I’ll thank your family too … you obviously wouldn’t be here, writing this wonderful blog full of amazing stories to read … so All Hail The King’s Family.
Thanks, John. 🙂