Comparative essay final paper

I have had some great teachers. They were passionate, knowledgeable, and determined to cram that knowledge into our brains in the best ways they could think of. And then I have had others that cared...not as much. I have had quite a few teachers, especially after doing 5 different tours of duty at different high schools, but there are two examples that come to mind when I think of notable teachers in my life, and they very different people who I have very different opinions of. One was passionate, creative, intense and dedicated to his students and his classroom. The other was apathetic, lazy and mean to his students. They both stand as testament to how our school system can go wonderfully...or terribly wrong.

The first teacher, Mr. Scalia, was my US History teacher my junior year.  He was Cajun, loud, enthusiastic, demanding total attention of his students, and would often go off on hilarious rants at the beginning of class. One time I walked into class, and he was not there by the time the bell rang. We squirmed in our seats unsure of what was going on, when he opened the classroom door, and without a word, climbed on his desk, stood up and held a big bible. Then he started shouting and preaching like he was on a soapbox in the gilded age. He went on and on for about 5 minutes until the assistant principal decided to poke his head in and ask if there was a problem going on. It was hilarious and painted a very clear picture of the lesson ahead.  Mr. Scalia kept an open door policy and always had plenty of time for his students. I would occasionally come in early before class and discuss what we were learning, relative current events, and would just joke around. I learned so much just from those brief interactions, he actually gave me his copy of “Lies my History Teacher taught me” which was a great book. He also gave extra lectures occasionally during his lunch period to students that were interested and organized an optional assembly to listen to a WW2 Vet speak. Mr. Scalia, while fun and a great orator, kept a stern grip on his classroom. Noone really minded, since we were so engrossed in what he was saying, but the one time that someone did decided to act foolish, he quickly kicked them out of his class and had him put into a different class. He did not play games and had very strong opinions about certain subjects we covered, he did not tolerate racism at all. The fact that he was Cajun and grew up when the US was trying to destroy their culture and language probably contributed to that. When one student threw out a racist remark towards Cajuns (our school had a large percentage of Louisiana natives that came after Hurricane Katrina), he completely laid into him. They were both shaking when he was done, the kid from fear and the teacher from rage. It was awkward, but good to see him stand up for his principles.

The other teacher I had, lets just call him Mr. Black, was awful. He had dark hair and large, buggy eyes. He was tall and spoke with a hoarse voice, I found it was impossible for him to whisper when he spoke, it was always booming. He was quiet most of the time though, since he seemed to take a stance that since he was a coach, he was too good for teaching. He sat at the back of the room, chewing foul smelling tobacco and spitting it into a cup while he would have a student pull up the powerpoint he prepared and recite it to the class. After we had notes, we would have a worksheet, where he would scream at us to be quiet over and over again.  As students of course we would get bored of this and talk, or we would finish early and talk, and he would scream at us to shut up. He also insisted on using terms of endearment with the female students whilst still looking like he wanted to tear a hole in our throats, which was confusing and scary. We had a Special Ed. Teacher that would come in to help with teaching, but Mr. Black would just leave, so the other teacher had to actually be in charge. When this other teacher came he would  actually explain the material and help us learn instead of just having us take in information and spit it out. This teacher later confessed to his disliking of the teacher and how he had tried to tell the district of our situation, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. "Hes a coach, if he is going to coach he has to teach, so why not just give him to the 'dumb' kids anyways" is basically the message we felt we were getting. 

These two teachers had very little in common, if anything. Sure they were both teachers at the same school, but one of them actually wanted to be teaching while the other just wanted to bell to ring so he could coach the girls tennis team.  Mr. Scalia actually knew his subject, while Mr. Black either did not or did not care enough to bother demonstrating his knowledge outside of the artificial medium of PowerPoint. Mr. Scalia embraced the chaos of the classroom with his own brand of rambunctious energy, which in a way, drowned everyone else out and just left us watching the lecture unfold, while Mr. Black sat quietly in the back, screamed at anyone who disturbed the peace and indulged in his nasty habit. Mr. Scalia inspired greatness and challenged his students to do better, while Mr. Black had a "Do as I say or else" approach that inspires you to dig your heels in the dirt and cover your ears. 
Both of these were exceptional teachers…exceptionally great and bad.