Happy World Teacher’s Day!
October 5th is World Teacher’s Day, and it’s a time where people from all corners of the globe take a day to thank the teachers that had an impact on them. Teachers play a crucial role in the development of the future generations, and taking out one day a year to say ‘thank you’ feels like they very least that they deserve.
Being an Education Recruitment company, we get to see firsthand the incredible impact that teachers can have. We know that it takes a village to raise a child, and a crucial part of that village is the teachers. So, we want to say a huge thank you to the village, and some of the teachers that helped to drag us up along the way!
For Scott, it was his drama teacher, and based on the dramatic, entertaining way that he keeps the office in stitches, we’re not surprised.
“I had a Drama teacher that made a big impact on me. She was your stereotypical Drama teacher – an old, knitted poncho, reading glasses hung on a string and crazy wild hair. She was passionate about Drama, and would always make us laugh, which lowered our spiking social awkwardness long enough for most of us to feel comfortable enough to participate.
I’m still not sure what, but she saw something in me and encouraged me to take GCSE Drama. I found myself really enjoying it, and ended up taking it as a subject option, even though none of my friends chose it. I’d ended up being the only boy in the group, but at least it meant I had my pick of the male roles for the most part. Because she was so passionate about Drama, it made me feel more confident in myself, and I always remembered her for it.”
For Sophie it was her Science teacher who had faith in her, even when she lacked faith in her own ability. Sophie is now the champion of self-love and self-support in the office, and we wonder if her teacher could have helped to push her to be this positive.
“When I was in my final year at school, I was failing Science, a combination of the fact that it’s incredibly difficult, and I hated it. When I thought all hope was lost, I got a different teacher, who actually took the time to get to know me and how my mind worked. She had so much faith in me, that I started to have faith in myself. I loved her classes and how supportive she was, and in the end, out of all of my subjects, Science worked out as my best grade.”
For Lance it was also his Science teacher, who taught him that in a world of fishes, he didn’t have to climb a tree if he didn’t want to. I’ll let him explain…
“I remember my Science teacher telling me a few things that have really stuck with me. One being that if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly – which sounds like a really weird piece of advice. But in actuality, it means that if you think something is worth doing, it’s better to put in what you can and do it at 50% than to get bogged down thinking that you can’t give 100% and so there’s no point in trying. It always taught me that success comes in smaller steps than we know, and as long as we’re moving slowly forwards, that’s positive.
He also always quoted Albert Einstein; ‘If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life thinking it’s stupid’. Again, it’s one of the quotes we’ve all heard before, but he added the context to relate it to life lessons – every single person thinks differently and acts differently and that’s a really special thing. You need to try and understand where people thrive and where they don’t, and personally I think this was a big influence for me to get into teaching, as I thought I could help people find what they enjoy, and what they’re good at, and help them nurture it. That’s also what I love about American Football, helping people improve in something they’re passionate about. I think it all comes back to those Science lessons.”
And lastly for me, it was my English teacher, who was as eccentric as he was supportive and forever changed the way that I read anything and everything.
“Throughout my GCSE and A Level lessons, I had a specific teacher for English Literature that was called into teach our struggling class a subject that I was beginning to regret taking. Play after play in old English had almost found me ready to throw in the towel, until he burst in through the door with a top hat and a cane. I already knew he was eccentric, every time I got a new timetable and he featured somewhere, I knew I was in for a wild ride. Each year at the Christmas assembly, he would recite a war poem with a dramatic reenactment, and for every boring Shakespeare lesson, he would dress up as the bard, and jump up on the tables, passionately screaming sonnets.
He was the first teacher to show me that Shakespeare was not supposed to be written down, and it 180-ed my way of learning and finally understanding Literature. It was the first play I’d ever properly understood, and I would be crying with laughter by the end of every lesson and brushing the dirt from his shoes off my desk so I could scribble down what he was still screaming. I remember realising that it wasn’t that I couldn’t understand, or I wasn’t smart enough to enjoy the lessons, but rather that it was high time someone started talking to me in a way that made sense. Since then, I’ve had a surprisingly easy time understanding Shakespeare, as long as there’s an old waistcoat lying around, and a table for me to jump up and shout on.”
We want to thank every teacher that had an impact on us, and every teacher that we now have the pleasure of working with. We have been, are, and will be very lucky to know you!
