Teacher Appreciation Week

Apparently this is Teacher Appreciation Week - far be it from me to question what I hear on the radio, so we'll go with it. The station imparting this knowledge had listeners calling in to talk about their favorite teacher - I'll skip the phone call and just write it down here.

My best-teacher-of-all-time-award goes to Don Mellor: 10th grade English and 12th grade Political Geography. 10th grade was my first year at private school; bored out of my wits in public school, I begged and wheedled until my mother gave in and enrolled me in Northwood. The first day in English, we were given a stack of paperbacks - our reading for the year. That night at home I cried, going over those books one by one - handling them, reading a page or two of each. I couldn't believe someone wanted me to read all of these. We were going to discuss them in class, give our opinions, write about them, be tested on them. I know this sounds silly, but no one had ever asked this of me before. I'd been reading voraciously since I was 5, but no one ever intimated that this was anything other than an admirable hobby. Now it was going to be so much more than that: I was floored. Through that year, Mr. Mellor taught us how to talk about books, how to write about them, and how to love them - not just as intelligent diversions but as works of art, as beauty. I've never read a book the same way again.

The following year I didn't have Mr. Mellor for class, but instead got myself into trouble and encountered him as Dean of Students (or as we called him, Dean of Discipline). He was, as always, fair and honest, and expected the same from all of us sinners. I (for once) was honest, and I've never felt so forgiven by another human being as I did when I left that classroom after "my turn to go talk to Mr. Mellor." I did my time on probation, raking leaves and washing dishes, and never got in trouble again at school.

My last year at school I took Political Geography (which, along with French 4, helped me to escape both Physics and Calculus - whee!). Again, Mr. Mellor was wonderful teacher. He taught less and guided more; he helped us bring out our own opinions, question them, and then write and speak about them intelligently. As a 17 year old, it is so important when an adult takes you and your opinions about the grown up world you are about to enter seriously. Mr. Mellor treated all of us with respect; he never allowed grown up cynicism to sneak in and ruin our idealism. He didn't leave us all believing in pie in the sky, either, but he never once made me feel that I had no idea what I was talking about, or that I didn't have a right to be passionate about an issue that moved me.

Thank you, Mr. Mellor. You were to me what a teacher should be. You demanded intergrity and good scholarship, you taught and you guided and you cared. Thank you.