The good, the bad, and the forgettable

There are only two kinds of teachers whom we will always remember: the really good teacher and the really bad one. The rest, who don’t fall in any of these categories, are easily forgotten.

Surely, most of us, who’ve had some formal schooling, have encountered at least one good teacher and one bad one in this lifetime.

In this imperfect world we live in, there will always be teachers who will tell you you won’t amount to something no matter what you do. They are the ones who brainwash you into believing that you’re destined to be a loser in this dog-eat-dog world we live in either because you’re too slow or too introverted, or maybe both. They have the gift of discouragement, which they use a lot much to our disappointment, victimizing a lot of young minds in the process.

Fortunately, there will always be teachers who will inspire and encourage you unceasingly to attain your maximum potential (think of the characters played by Robin Williams and Julia Roberts in Dead Poet’s Society and Mona Lisa Smile, respectively), making you believe that anything is possible if you focus well and work hard on reaching your life goals. These are the type of educators who really care for their students — on and off campus. As opposed to the bad teachers, they have what it takes to make a positive impact on the lives of their students.

And well, there will always be teachers who are just plain mediocre educators — not that good, but not that bad either; they are the ‘in-between types.’ What they do in class goes straight to oblivion. It’s hard to categorize them into bad or good teachers really, just because they naturally fade in the background. They are just not distinct enough to be remembered.

I implore students of the 21st century to do the following: Don’t listen to the put-downs of the bad teachers. Embrace the teachings and ideals of the good ones. And try not to forget those teachers who fall in between these two categories, however hard that may be.

TIDBITS: If you wish to learn German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, or Greek for free, check out this BBC site. Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offers free courses online — from Aeronautics to Chemical Engineering to History and Foreign Languages — through its wonderful MIT Open Courseware program. Of course, you will not earn any credits for them, as a non-paying student. But the wealth of knowledge made available to everyone is still something to be thankful for.