Mr Adler and Those That Can

Mr Adler and Those That Can

My Dad was fond of saying “Those that can, do, those that can't, teach”. I know he didn't really believe this but he liked to say it, after all his Mother had been a teacher. I suspect that some of his motivation was his sister-in-law, who was an excellent teacher, but also someone who could come across as a “know it all”.

I've had many teachers, both good and bad from grade school through college. Teaching is more than just a skill that you learn. Being able to teach is really a gift that should be highly valued. Unfortunately there seems to be this general idea that teaching is kind of easy and most anyone can do it, so we in general pay teachers poorly. Why? Is it better to have a few more dollars in our pockets than invest in our kids, really our whole society? That does seem to be the general feeling. We lose so many talented teachers to other occupations because we as a society undervalue the ability to teach or maybe we undervalue education in general. We reward those who have the ability to sell us something we don't need or even want more than those who have the ability to teach us things that will enrich our lives. I know it's not that simple but still, what's wrong with us?

We each have our favorite teachers from our school days, well maybe not my sister. As far as I could tell, my sister never had a teacher she liked. Ironically she married a teacher, so I guess she did find one. Anyway, there are a few teachers that always come to mind for me. My 8^th grade Social Studies teacher, Mr Murphy is one. He was interesting and fun. He had a great sense of humor and was good at relieving the stress we all felt. He made history interesting. He would sometimes give you hints during tests if he saw you were struggling. He gave pop quizzes and always had a giveaway question on them. Questions like “What is the color of the White House?” or “What was the color of Robert E. Lee's horse named Midnight?” Surprisingly, some students would still managed to miss it. On one test I once answered “The H.M.S. Pinafore” (Gilbert and Sullivan) on a question asking which British ship did something or other. Although clearly the wrong answer, I got credit because it made him laugh and he thought it was clever. He also once gave me an extra ½ credit for a combination of the answer and the way I attempted to spell the word, I am a terrible speller. He taught us other stuff too, like how to take tests. Things like how to guess and how tests usually contained answers to other questions on that same test. He emphasized thinking and engaging. He really was a great teacher.

As much as I liked and was influenced by Mr. Murphy my favorite and most influential teacher was my my 5^th grade teacher Mr. Adler. I was a shy and quiet kid. My grade school teachers often thought I was too quiet. Mr Bono was my 4^th grade teacher. Mr Bono was so concerned about me being so quiet that he called my parents in to talk to them about it. My Dad, after listening to what he had to say, asked him if I was causing any problems or if I was doing poorly in any of my subjects. Mr Bono said no, that I was well behaved and doing well. My Dad then said “Well all you need is 24 more like him you wouldn't have any problems.” and walked out.

Mr. Adler was a new teacher at my school when I reached the 5^th grade. I was assigned to his class. He was fun loving. He created a safe and welcoming environment, encouraging students to actively participate. He laughed easily and readily engaged with his students. We often stayed after school to help him because he was so much fun to be around. He told me that he did not read the student evaluations from their previous teachers before the school year started because he did not want to be influenced before getting to know the student for himself. Mr Adler was the first teacher to ever send me out into the hall for talking or for that matter, anything. Being sent out to the hall was a normal punishment for repeated minor infractions, like talking in class, chewing gum, etc. With Mr. Adler I ended up in the hall a few times. I was out in the hall one day and I saw the principal coming down the hall. Now if the principal sees you standing in the hall and you don't have a hall-pass you will likely get to spend some quality time with him in his office. So when I saw him, I took off like I was going to the bathroom. I walked by him and said hello. He didn't ask me for my hall-pass. That's likely because he'd never seen me out in the hall for punishment before and he'd probably read my scouting report.

One day a few of us from Mr. Adler's class stayed after school with him. He told us he was wearing a new shirt that day. He then told us some story about how he always manages to ruin his shirts and how his wife is always needing to get him new ones. So we decided that when he started doing something at his desk we would all sneak up behind him with magic markers draw on his shirt, or act like we were drawing but leave the caps on. So we all go up and start doing this and the cap on the marker I was using popped off and I put a big orange streak down his new shirt. I was mortified. Mr Adler just laughed it off, saying how his wife was going to kill him. He could see that I felt bad. He didn't punish me or try to make me feel any worse than I already did, in fact he tried to make me feel better. However he did have something to kid me about for the rest of the year. Fifth grade was probably the only year that I actually liked school and after Mr. Adler I was no longer the quiet kid in class.

The next year, 6^th grade, my teacher was Mr. MacDonald. He was not as much fun but was still a good teacher. Throughout the year he kept moving kids who were sitting next me to another spot because they were talking during class too much. He finally puts the quietest kid in class next to me. Shortly after that, it's now late in the school year, he turns around and looks at me and says “It's you!, You're the one who's doing the talking”. I am thinking that he was another victim of reading student reports from previous teachers.

Both Mr. Murphy and Mr. Adler left teaching to pursue other careers. I guess they found out that “they can”, or at least they found that they could make more not teaching. What a shame, teachers who can both connect with and effectively teach young people are hard to find and desperately needed. I'm sure glad that they were both around for me though. That expression ought to be “Those that can teach should be highly valued and those that can't should do something else.”.