I had my fair share of bad math teachers in school. My Algebra 2 teacher made it clear that she hated kids--why go into teaching then? My Geometry teacher had a serious issue of spitting while he was speaking. I knew this well because my desk abutted his for an entire semester--front and center of the classroom. I frequently left that class covered in his saliva. The week of Easter he announced that he would be doing his annual "Peeps contest." Apparently every year he would consume an entire box of Peeps as fast as he could in front of the class. How fun. I was an unfortunate witness to his "new record," finishing in less than 1:30--or was it 45 seconds? No idea. I do know that it shouldn't have counted though, because a good portion of the Peeps ended up on me in the front row. Gross. I've never been able to look at Peeps since--or rarely even marshmallows. Most of junior high I've been able to block from my memory, but the "Peeps Incident" is forever ingrained. So, enough of the bad, back to Mr. Anderson.
It's hard to convey just how cool this man truly is for those who were not fortunate enough to have him as their teacher. Let's start with Culture Day. Every Friday was "Culture Day." During the first 5-10 minutes of class Mr. Anderson would either read some "Deep Thoughts" or the less known "Fuzzy Memories" by Jack Handey, or have some type of extra credit activity (e.g. Name That Tune for old t.v. show theme songs--1/2 point for each correct answer). Since I was his all-time favorite student, he always let me control the cd player and thus earn an automatic 5 points. (Honestly, I'm pretty sure I needed the extra credit more than anyone else in the class, so that's more likely why he let me do it). I guess everyone knew this and so it became the joke that anyone who earned extra credit points donated them to me. "Give it to Alyse, she needs it more than I do." Thanks for the faith, guys! You could also earn extra credit points by taking home his massive roll of transparencies that he used for examples on the overhead and cleaning it.
The worst thing about Calculus was that it was 1st hour. That meant I was late basically everyday. Those who were tardy were required to do some sort of embarrassing act in front of the class to discourage their tardiness. This didn't work for me. I had to do the Macarena in front of my class so much it almost became a joke. Eventually he gave up trying to "punish" me after I showed up having rehearsed one of Shakira's songs for the class. (When my little sister Kate showed up late almost everyday, he told her--"don't worry, it's genetic.")
Mr. Anderson's hall pass was a blue toilet seat. In order to use the bathroom you had to haul that thing with you. I never used the bathroom during his class. His classroom management style always made us laugh. When people would talk while he was teaching he would spray them with his transparency cleaning solution--which was probably just water, we hope.
Then there was Pi Day, which is (or else should be) everyone's favorite holiday. Every student brought a pie to share. We were entertained throughout the class by various acts related to Pi. Some people memorized Pi up to 50 digits beyond the decimal. I was not one of those people. I sang "Mr Anderson's Pi Day" to the tune of "The Grundy County Auction" by John Michael Montgomery. I still remember most of it, but I'll spare you. Fun was had by all, and we ate way too much pie. (Especially since it was only 8 a.m.).
Anyone who met Mr. Anderson could not help but notice his personal style. Every morning he would spray on some hair, then comb over what little hair he had over that. A spray on comb over. It was sweet! He found an old glove one day in the gutter. He cut the fingers off but used the glove to keep his hand from burning on his overhead that he used all day. Legend has it that he also found a pair of glasses in the street, tried them on, realized that they worked better than the glasses he already had, so he used them instead.
Mr. Anderson was a very fun teacher, but he was also practical and caring. He genuinely wanted his students to learn and succeed. He let us re-take different versions of tests and quizzes until we demonstrated that we were proficient, and also improve our grades. He spent most Saturday mornings there at school so that we could come and retake these quizzes/tests, and took the extra time to grade all of them. One time I missed the day before a test because I was sick. He called me at home to ask if I was okay, if I had any questions, and make sure I was prepared to take the test. He was not your ordinary teacher. So, thank you Mr. Anderson for your hard work, your patience, and overall awesomeness. You are the best teacher I've ever had.
And for old time memory's sake, the Calculus cheer:
ex dx/dy. ey dy/dz.
sec, tan, cos, sin
3.14159!!!!!
*After my freshman year of college I went and visited Mr. Anderson. He asked if I had chosen a major. I told him I was going to be a speech-language pathologist to which he responded "Oh good, that doesn't require very much math!" Ha!!!!
2 comments:
one of my favorite teachers was a calculus teacher too.
He also was the boys soccer jv coach for like 20 yrs. Busy guy. My two older kids had him as well.
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