Thank you to some of my most favorite teachers! Because of these educators, I am live my dream of becoming a professional student (which is what most teachers truly are)! I honor the following teachers: My 6th grade teacher, Ms. Sczapanik, at St. Bride's pushed me to be better and loved us with tender, tough love. I remember her sitting next to me and talking me through math problems that looked like Chinese to me. I will never forget the test she gave the class and in the directions it said do not do any problem on this test. I learned to always read the directions and now as a teacher I totally understand her motive and how it informed her instruction. My HPCA science teacher Ms. Blakely was small but mighty and ruled with an iron fist--no excuses. Students with other teachers were dropping Biology like flies complaining about it being too hard. It was SINCERELY hard, but you dared not drop Ms. Blakely's class for fear she would find you even in your dreams and hunt you down and teach Biology to you still. True passion! My EMPEHI English teacher Ms. Perkins talked and walked with an air of knowledge and she wanted all her students to meet her standards and we did. I imagined she lived in a loft downtown facing the lake. She surely had afternoon tea with girlfriends as they talked about art and literature. I saw her out in the store one day in my neighborhood (probably on her way to her downtown loft that NO Chicago Public teacher could ever afford) and I freaked out. It was like she was a celebrity, but really she was to me! My Creighton University theater professor whose name I can't remember but his face, his words, his insistence will forever be in my heart extolled my theatrical ability and gave me confidence to try anything. He forced me to try out for Madame Butterfly and coerced me to do a theatrical evening reading performance of Leaves of Grass. I became obsessed with Walt Whitman and had the courage to try out for the University of Illinois School of Theatrical Acts (as a transfer students with TWO open slots) and GET IN! Never would I have had the gusts to do this without his insistence that I had the ability to a theatrical great--my family always says now that the Emmy goes to me, so my teacher was right. I love that I get perform for an audience everyday. And my favorite, Dr. Laura Tanner, my Boston College English professor who made me believe that I was a gifted student with untold potential. Her unwavering belief in me MADE me NEVER want to disappoint her or myself. I remember her stopping class several times and staring at me and asking my peers to take a moment and consider my statement. She picked apart my first paper like you would not believe and her comment at the end (as I was scared to look because I was sure based on all her comments throughout would be terrible with an F) was BRILLIANT. Who me? The antithesis of a BC students. A young black girl from the South Side of Chicago who goes picks up her daughter on the way home to her tiny apartment. Brilliant was not an adjective I heard often until Dr. Tanner. Teachers make the world go round! #worldteachersday
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AuthorDocumenting my evolution by filling in space and matter one word at a time. Archives
March 2023
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