Blog Challenge Day One

Anne Shirley of Green Gables and I have very little in common. I am brunette while she is, much to her chagrin, a red head. I have three siblings, including a twin sister, while she was a lonely orphaned child. She grew up on an island in the country with the ocean at her doorstep and I was surrounded by an ocean of prairie and city streets.

But Anne and I do share a few traits. A love of nature, of whimsical places and ideas and a passion for literature. We also tread on common ground when it comes to teachers. There is no tepid. There is only all encompassing adoration for a teacher or utter disdain. She had her Mr Phillips to hate and Miss Stacey to love.

In every grade and every school, I found a favorite teacher and always in a different subject. One year it would be my English and the next it was my Drama teacher. Though, I have to admit it was never my Math teachers. I guess I couldn't get past my hatred for Math to enjoy the teacher forcing me to learn something that didn't come naturally to me.

Even recently, when I was upgrading my education, I got a girl-crush on my English teacher. Old habits die hard and it was easy for me to start the whole process of wishing we were friends. I just thought she was *sssooooo* cool because she was close to my age, got to teach English all day long and was writing her Masters on Canadian poet, Al Purdy. It probably only added fuel to flames that she was funny, swore as much as I do, hip and didn't care if I was late for class or left early.

Though, I've hated teachers as well. Thankfully, I have such a terrible memory, which is especially good at forgetting the awful things. I recall hating my grade 11 social studies teacher (but have forgotten his name). I didn't hate him the whole term...only near the end when we had some sort of disagreement in which I stormed out of class and refused to enter again. I had 6 or 7 classes left to finish the term (and I would've passed, though it would have been a low mark) but I was/am stubborn and was standing by my principles (though it's been so long I can't even recall what the debate was about). I never returned to his class and would've had to take Social Studies 20 all over again were it not for the fact that I quit school in Grade 12 first term.

I've never regretted quitting school. I've got a well paying job, I work in a nice office and generally am at the same level as others my age who have a diploma and a degree of some sort. I only lamented that quitting school meant not being with my teachers. And even now I still fully toy with the idea of becoming a teacher myself. Art or English, I can't decide. Maybe it's my turn to know the love or hate of a classroom full of students.

Shannon

PS. Claudia - I don't remember Mr. Smith. What did he look like? I love Mr. Mills at McNally. I would've married that short, pudgy bastard just because he made me laugh so much.