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Take moment to praise your favorite teacherTucson, Arizona | Published: 10.02.2008
Like the bumper sticker says: If you can read this, thank a teacher.
The "Tucson Values Teachers" campaign to improve public education kicked off yesterday at an event held at the Tucson Convention Center called the "State of Education: A Community Conversation on K-12 Education."
Hundreds of educators, community members and business leaders gathered to talk about the education crisis in our state and region.
All the speakers throughout the program — including Gov. Janet Napolitano — spoke about their favorite teachers, people who helped to shape their lives.
Napolitano encouraged the audience to take a minute and write a note or place a call to that influential teacher, to say thanks and let that teacher know how he or she changed a life in a meaningful way.
Teachers deserve better pay and broad community support. But on a personal level, there are few things that means more to a teacher than knowing he or she got through to a student in a profound way.
The Arizona Daily Star, along with Tucson Values Teachers and Arizona Public Media, is sponsoring the "My Favorite Teacher" contest.
To kick off the contest, we asked Star sports columnist Greg Hansen to write about his favorite teacher.
Two days shy of my first high school football game, I broke my collarbone on a simple off-tackle run. I squirmed on the ground, afraid, desperate not to let 'em see me cry.
Until that moment, I had been one of 45 faceless sophomores trying to get coach Rod Tueller's attention.
"Don't move," Tueller ordered. "I'm going to have someone call your parents. What's your name?"
Getting hurt worked. It was an introduction to the teacher of a young man's lifetime.
Rod Tueller wasn't just a sophomore football coach. He became my homeroom social studies teacher. In some order, he became an adviser and a friend. Better than that, he became a voice of reason during an age in which, like so many high school kids, reason wasn't always an ally.
He didn't care if you were a ballplayer or a kid from the choir. Who cares? Come on in. Let's talk. I don't know anybody who didn't admire him.
He became the varsity baseball coach who gave me a crack at the leadoff spot. He was my driver's ed teacher who, somehow, actually seemed interested when you learned how to parallel park. Years later, he was the man who performed my marriage ceremony.
How often do you run across a teacher like that?
During the year I was sidelined with a broken collarbone, a man from the local newspaper asked coach Tueller if anyone on the squad could file a report on our games.
"Get over to the Herald-Journal," he said in that morning's homeroom class. "The sports editor wants to talk to you."
My foot was in the door.
Later that year, after a bitter loss to our hometown basketball rival, I struggled to write something coherent.
At that time and that place, the game was almost bigger than words.
A few hours removed from losing the most important game of the season, Coach Tueller phoned.
"I didn't see you after the game," he said. "I was thinking you should balance your story by having a few quotes from the losing coach."
I told him I feared he would be upset, nor wish to be disturbed by a kid reporter.
"If you're afraid of a basketball coach, you'll never go very far," he said. "The important thing is that you show those people at the newspaper you can do the job properly."
Everyone in my school knew Rod Tueller was a terrific coach. Some of us discovered he was a better teacher.
Opinion by
Greg
Hansen
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