Latest / Illinois Valley - Shaw Local / Spirit Matters: High school English teachers taught more than language

Transcript

Spirit Matters: High school English teachers taught more than language · Illinois Valley - Shaw Local

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Spirit Matters, high school English teachers taught more than language.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Written by Jerrelyn Zavada Novak and Spirit Matters. This article
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: is being read by an automated voice brought to you
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: by Everlett. I first encountered Robert Frost's poem The Road
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Not Taken as a sophomore in high school by poetry
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: and drama teacher Missus Parsons read it to us in
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: her thick New England accent. She was a lover of
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the written word and a model of discipline. The year
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: prior I had her for basic composition, in which I
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: had to write my first real research paper and turn
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: it in typed and double spaced. Back then, we used
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: five and one quarter inch floppy disks to save our work,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: and computers were beginning to gain steam. I hadn't taken
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: a typing class yet, so I feverishly worked to the end,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: tapping a few keys at a time. Then disaster struck.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I hadn't saved my work to the disk, and the
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: computer crashed, lost the whole thing. I told us missus
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Parsons of my dilemma, hoping she would give me extra
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: time to complete the assignment. She didn't. She insisted it
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: had to be turned in on time or I would
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: lose one letter grade for each day I was late.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I was fourteen and furious. How could she be so unfair?
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I redid the research paper and turned it in late.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: If I remember correctly, what would have been a B
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: paper turned into a C paper. After I had missus
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Parsons for poetry and drama, I didn't have her for
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the rest of high school, but my English teacher in
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: my junior and senior years was just as if not more,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: academically demanding. Miss Driskell had a reputation as one whom
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: students were grateful for after they had taken college English classes.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Miss Driskell's discipline and work ethic prepared those who had
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: her for the rigors of college work. In contrast to
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: many students from other schools who struggled with writing papers,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: missus Parsons and Miss Driskell clearly loved their vocations. They
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: appreciated the written word and the rules surrounding how to
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: use appropriate Graham March. Through their examples, they imprinted a
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: lasting love for the written and spoken word on me
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: as well. It is a love that is perpetually renewed
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: even after periods of self doubt and drought. Ironically, perhaps
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: mine and missus Parsons's paths converged again twenty years later,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: when we were both chosen by the Times to be
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: on the right team, a community based group of aspiring writers.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: She and I rode together to the orientation in Ottawa.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: By now I was an adult with some life experience
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: of my own, riding in the car with one of
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: my high school teachers who had become more influential on
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: my life than I could have imagined while I was
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: her student as an aspiring writer. It was humbling to
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: have been selected as part of a group that included her.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Missus Parsons and Miss Driskell are no longer with us,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: but their legacies will live long into the future, not
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: just through my work, but through the work of hundreds
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: of students who learned to approach their work work with
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: discipline and pride through their stringent expectations. I cannot help
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: but think, in this information age, when artificial intelligence sadly
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: does the heavy lifting for many students, how meaningful that
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: last stanza from Frost's poem is to me Today. I
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Hence two roads diverged in a wood, and I took
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: the one less traveled by, and that has made all
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the difference. Spirit Matters is a weekly column by Jeraln
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Zovada Novak that examines experiences common to the human spirit.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Contact her at j Z Blue three three at yahoo
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: dot com.