James Jones
nov 11th 2013
English 101
Dr. Begerts
My two history teachers
Having the life of a high school student is a blessing in many
different ways because you get to experience a lot, you’re going through your
growing period of becoming an adult, some of the things a high school student
would experience are the dance, sports, boy/girlfriend, parties and more, but
something that most students get to experience is the connection they establish
between their teachers. I have two history teachers that I would like to
compare in their teaching styles and how they affect their students in the
class room, both teachers were friends to one another and they coached football
at the high school together, but one was a senior class teacher and the other
was a sophomore teacher Mr. Allen and Mr. Albee.
I personally knew Mr. Allen and the type of personality he had
before the school year even started, and that was going to an open house event.
The very first conversation we had was about why I was not on the football team
that year and I told him my grades were not good. Now when I look back on it I
see that he was trying to make a personal connection with me because he seen
talent. The first day of class Mr. Allen was straight up and told everyone that
he had brain cancer, there was complete silence in the and everyone felt
terrible he then passed out the school syllabus for the semester, when he was
going over it he was talking about what stuff we were going to be graded on, a
classmate next to me complained and was like why do we got to take a quiz ever
Friday, Mr. Allen responded “to see if you guys are doing what you are supposed
to. In my thought process I was like “damn this class is not going to be fun at
all.
In fact Mr. Allen was a tough teacher but the way he teaches
makes everyone understands the history content. The text book was
extremely difficult for some of the students to read, that he made us watch a
lot of videos to help jump start our brains. Mr. Allen was not the type of guy
who wanted to be your friend, but wanted you to be successful, he made us read
the text every day in class, because we were pop quizzed on it every Friday
before class started. All students would come into class dreading to take the
test which was handed out by the teacher, and then everyone would be in science
with their heads looking the test with pencils filling in the empty lines.
Mr. Allen use to be a marine, and everyone knew how his attitude
is and what he does not put up with so the mowing and growing was not accepted
by him during class time, if someone would talk back to him or be a smart ass then
he would kick you out of class, Mr. Allen was such a hard person to work with
sometimes cause he would be stubborn on certain situations, a big one would be
debating in the class, the reason I say that is because you usually have that
one person in the class that will push the teachers buttons and start an
argument in the class on the debated situation, I mean when a debate takes
place it is an open opinion at that point, but it would get frustrating for the
class.
When it came down to the semester class final everyone was so
nervous standing outside of the class room door because no one knew what to
expect how it would be. Mr. Allen came and unlocked the door and all the
students sat in their seats, he passed out the final and said everyone begin.
All the pencils start to write on the paper as everyone is so deeply focused on
the test. 30 min from the test being handed out people were beginning to start
to turn in their test, and looking at their faces you can tell that they were
feeling confident. The next day the results were posted outside on a board 85%
passed the class. For all of the hard work and how Mr. Allen taught us made a
lot of since on why he was tough, that was because us being 10th graders and
starting a new life he wanted to show that life isn’t going to be easy and
things will not be just given to you, you had to work for them.
Now going into my senior year I wasn’t expecting to get Mr. Albee
which was Mr. Allen friend as well as another coach on the football team, but
indeed I did end up getting him my senior year, I was nervous at first because
I know that the teachers do talk and I was in Mr. Allen class as well. The
first day I walked in and his sealing had a bunch of flags painted on the tiles
as well as there being a big Marine Corps flag in class. He had passed out his
syllabus and all of the class students were following along as he was going
over, Mr. Albee gave a little bio about himself, he was a marine as well and is
married, I thought to myself this guy is going to be difficult as well, but Mr.
Albee stated that he knows most of us have been in Mr. Allen’s class in the 10th
grade, he wanted to clarify that he is not as mean as Mr. Allen but they are
best friends, that raised everyone’s confidents a little.
Mr. Albee was a tough teacher, but when it came down to it he
really was not. He made the class from fun. He made the curriculum fun with
history and a lot more interactive and hands on. We continued to still have
quizzes every Friday but they were not tough because it was based off the films
we would watch in the class and we took notes. Mr. Albee was a silly guy and
would tell jokes to the students, his motive was “hey its senior year why not
have fun”. Everyday students came into class energized and was excited for what
is going to happen next. Mr. Albee had a high rate of passing students in his
class and it only continued to raise.
Still to these day these teachers have influenced me greatly. I learned
from Mr. Allen that having someone in your life that is hard on you and pushes
you is not a bad thing, because that makes you want to try harder in life and
be successful, Mr. Albee taught me things can be tough in life but you have to
make the best out of them meaning finding something enjoyable to keep your mind
focused. Both teachers were awesome people but Mr. Allen did end up passing
away my senior year and that stuck with me and the other classmates for a while,
and Mr. Albee ended up becoming really sick and had to stop teaching.
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