To all of the teachers, professors, parents, teaching assistants, teacher aids, caregivers, faculty, staff, and state/county/city/town employees who give so much to children to provide a sound education, a safe community, and a happy place to grow up. Thank you.
How are you celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week, especially if you don’t have any children in school? Spend a moment reflecting back on what you learned from your favorite teachers.
This year, I’m thinking about Mr. Quigly, my history teacher from 7th grade. He put his heart and soul into EVERY-single-class. No exceptions. There are two specific memories I’d like to share.
MR. QUIGLY, ONE OF THE BEST
First, when Mr. Quigly taught us geography, he made it fun. For a test, he broke us into teams of four students. Each team was able to challenge the rest of the class by naming a country. Then the other teams had to send students up to a gigantic map with just geography lines. If none of the other teams correctly pointed to the country and your team could, your team won the point. My team received an A on the test. Why? Because I challenged the class to find Gambia. And I was the only one that correctly pointed to it (finger-shaped country on the upper west coast of Africa). And today, I use that same fun, team approach when I am teaching my students about various figures of speech in my University of Maryland Business School course.
My second fond memory is when Mr. Quigly was teaching us about various customs from around the world. When he was teaching us about bowing, he bowed so deeply from his waist that he split his business suit jacket down the middle back. We all collectively gasped. He laughed and didn’t let a little thing like ripping his jacket bother him. He took off his jacket. And finished the lecture.
Happy Teacher Appreciation Days: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016
Photography Source: National PTA
