Dani's Writing Journey

One of the classes I have to take in order to get my MFA about teaching writing and the first few weeks we’ve discussed what makes a good teacher brining back memories of teachers I’ve had that inspired me and one that messed with my head.

Most of the teachers I loved during grades K-12 were the ones who touch English. Apart of this was because I was able to read a book and sometimes I was able to do some creative writing pieces, but at most of it was because they always treated me kindly and encouraged my love of reading and writing. I remeber an English class in middle school, we were given an assignment to write a short story. I know there was a page count or maybe a word (I don’t really remember this) but when my creativity kicked in and I definitely went well over the number of pages or words that were required the teacher was happy to see me enjoying what I was doing. It made me so happy to not be in trouble for doing more than was required and to get that bit of encouragement from a teacher. To this day it still makes me happy even more so for the fact that she would have to grade that assignment on her time off. I had many other teachers in high school who encouraged my writing, who to this day their kind words make me smile and I hope they know how much they were appreciated at least for me.

Not every one of my teachers were so friendly, my first grade teacher was a disaster. She was tenured and from what my mom found out, she bullied other students but nothing was done because of her status in the school. Most of the memories I’ve blocked out, partially because of the length of time, but I believe it was it was too cruel for my brain to want to remember. I do remember bits of her trying to embarrass me in front of the class and I know there was some jabs on my intelligence (but come on I’m SIX and in 1st grade of course I’m not as smart as the teacher because I’m a child). I know that her choices and opinions of my “intelligence”, or lack there of, effected the rest of my education keeping me in the lower level classes when I didn’t really need to be in (ok for math and science was not my strong suit and appreciated the slower pace of these classes even if I could have handled a slightly more advanced class). Although she was a horrible human being, I can thank her for the fact that I am currently trying to proving to myself that she was wrong by completing my masters and eventually getting my PhD.