52 Weeks Of Gratitude… A Teacher Or Mentor

     This week’s topic is a favorite teacher or mentor.  The first person who came to my mind was Miss Groff, my second grade teacher.  

     Miss Groff always encouraged me to keep writing.  It was a joy to write stories for her because she inspired a love of the written word.  It was then I developed a real interest in writing my thoughts on paper.  As an introverted child, writing became my therapy as well as my passion.  Miss Groff was that inspiration.

.

The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called ‘truth’.
Dan Rather

   Later in life we shared yet another unwanted event.  That event was Ovarian Cancer. We, both, had different rarer forms of the Ovarian cancer but Ovarian, just the same.  She is one of my many Ovarian Cancer heroes such as Shannon Miller, world champion gymnast.

. 

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
William Arthur Ward

   Miss Groff inspired a passion to learn through her teacher and was both charismatic and stimulating in her teaching style which she carried through to fighting cancer.  I loved being part of her class especially as she would read us books and make them seem like they were happening right in front of us.

.

The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave
anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the
genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language.
Because of them I rode with Don Quixote and danced with Anna Karenina at a
ball in St. Petersburg and lassoed a steer in “Lonesome Dove” and had
nightmares about slavery in “Beloved” and walked the streets of Dublin in
“Ulysses” and made up a hundred stories in the Arabian nights and saw my
mother killed by a baseball in “A Prayer for Owen Meany.” I’ve been in ten
thousand cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers
in my exuberant reading career, all because I listened to my fabulous
English teachers and soaked up every single thing those magnificent men and
women had to give. I cherish and praise them and thank them for finding me
when I was a boy and presenting me with the precious gift of the English
language.
― Pat Conroy

What teacher made a difference in you?  Which one inspired you to continue to grow?

 

     On another note, I know I am behind this past week.  I have been dealing with the flu and pneumonia.  I am hoping to be on the downhill side with this.