The United States is failing its young people, as the politicians argue in Washington about which side is right the country suffers in many ways; one being students taught in a traditional education setting that is completely obsolete. When I think of an educator I think of someone who has taught me in their class. Most think a teacher is someone who has shoved more information into your brain and expected me to regurgitate it later. “Be ready for the test” is what I hear and then after said test you never speak of the information again until the next test or next class. This is what the United States’ education system is like.
But Mr. Malling, my English teacher, is not like this. He would not just try to cram your brain with useless jargon and call it teaching. Instead, he goes over what he teaches throughout the semester. Along with the way he grades his students, he grades a student’s work based on their ability and thought. He grades papers, with the occasional worksheet he found important, this shows that he cared more about the ability of your mind and not your ability to follow along and get random little grades all over the place. These reasons are not the only reason why he is a great educator.
When I walked into his class, I expected intellectual discussions. He would tell us to turn of our “Google machines” or asked us to stop being slaves to our machines so we could have a discussion. If it had something to do with English, it was all the better. It was more along the lines of “Are you guys even conscious?” which would result in everyone proving that they weren’t. Him asking questions like these was not in a mocking manner but a genuine curiosity and concern. Him saying this shows that I was forced to have a deeper thought process in his class.
Sometimes it was like Mr. Malling and I were hanging out having a discussion about life because no one would take the time or effort to even try and respond to his questions. It was not that it was Mr. Malling’s fault either, some people just genuinely don’t care or don’t know how to think. He enriched my mind by going back and forth. Isn’t that what an educator is supposed to do?
Although Mr. Malling and I are opposites, we share some common ground. School does not have to be a dry center of information cramming. It can be a place of intellect. And Mr. Malling is proof. For example, Mr. Malling told me he feels a duty to society and I could never understand why he would think something so ridiculous but through discussion my mind was changed. I learned a new way to think about a teacher’s duty to their students.
When you exercise your mind in discussion it takes you to further places in your mind that I would have never reached without someone to show you the way. This is what I learned in Mr. Malling’s class.
This brutal honesty is hard to find. You might be reading this, thinking, Wow he doesn’t sound like a good educator or role model…Well I Mr. Malling is so brutally honest and unafraid to tell you exactly how a situation is. I would rather hear the truth from someone. This is how his class was everyday. I cannot stand when teachers try to take the “professional route” and not allow a discussion to start. Teachers should argue with students, and Mr. Malling understands the importance of an argument.
This essay may seem unexpected to reflect a best educator but maybe it should shine a light on humanity as a whole then. What are we doing if our educators have to ask if high school students are conscious? It isn’t his fault, it is society's fault. Kids have no drive to learn at all. Mr. Malling tried to find the reason why kids don’t have a drive to learn for the sake of gaining intelligence. I am a high school student and what I see from my peers as a whole gives me no hope. But people like Mr. Malling give me hope for the world.