Favourite Person: the Transformative Influence of a Passionate Teacher

Introduction

“Your profession is not what brings home your weekly paycheck; your profession is what you’re put here on earth to do, with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling,” this quote is from one of the very inspirational artists, Vincent van Gogh. Most people have had a favorite teacher who impacted them a lot. Maybe it was an elementary teacher who helped you ease the anxiety from moving to a new school. It could also have been a middle school teacher who helped you get out of some trouble or was there when you really needed a friend to talk to.

I was in high school when I found my favorite teachers who had helped me grow when I needed it the most.

Today I will be talking about one who really impacted my life in such a short time. This story will be about one of the most spontaneous people that got inspired by Mr. Vincent van Gogh. My high school art and photography teacher, Mr. Mike Rogers. If you could ask any student what Mr. Rogers is to us, they would say that he is not just a teacher but a person, someone that you could never meet again.

Art Teachers: Hidden Gems of Inspiration

I have realized that in schools, the artistic teachers are the ones who are always hidden in the shadows, like a ninja in a way. Out of all my life going to school, I have also realized that the art teachers were always my top favorite teachers. Many people consider a good teacher someone who makes or helps their students have good test scores and good grades. To me, a good teacher is someone who truly cares about you becoming a better person in life and in your own work. Someone who encourages you to go to school just to have that little bit of joy in their class while getting a good grade. That inspired me a lot.

He personally doesn’t know about all the sadness I went through before I even knew who he was, but he changed my perspective so much about life and art. Since I was a little kid, I really liked to draw and color on anything you could think of, literally anything. It was really like a stress and sadness reliever for me. I didn’t think I had a deep interest in art and film photography until I joined his class. Before I joined his class, I was going through a lot of sadness. I had lost the person I loved the most, which brought me so much happiness but so much pain at the same time. Through all the sadness that I was going through, I blamed my teachers; I blamed the school I was in; I blamed my classmates, I blamed my parents; I blamed my siblings. I would go home to bed at night and pretend I had a therapist.

Conclusion

Mr. Rogers is a pretty cool, laid-back kind of fella who tried his best to encourage all of his students that he had. Keep in mind he teaches seven different types of classes plus an after-school club for those who really want to do something with art or photography. He also does his own artwork out of school. This is just to show how much he loves to do what he is doing, but also to brag how cool he is! The thing about Mr. Rogers is that if you ask him to tell you something about himself, he will be very open about it. He did not grow up in a bad environment, but he does teach in an environment where poverty and broken homes are huge things. He puts himself in the shoes of every student that walks into his class, and I remember him telling my friends and me something about it. He does it because you never know what that person is going through. I remember very vividly him telling us another story that took place around four years when he told us that a student he was really close with that the boyfriend that student had recently stabbed his brother for being too close to her, as a brother should, and that she started crying and crying.

References

1. “The Influence of Teaching Beyond Standardized Test Scores: Engagement, Mindsets, and Agency” by Gregory M. Walton

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