A Rare ‘Thank You’ from a Former Student

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2015

I don’t often get messages from students like this because most of my former students are hard-core lefties, not American patriots who love their country.

“Did you see Tucker Carlson say ‘The DC swamp corruption fighting Trump is the same as the corruption of Ceausescu?’  If it wasn't for you I wouldn't have gotten the reference. I'm grateful I had you as a teacher. I didn't realize as a high school student why you worked yourself so hard to push us to learn to our fullest. I'm grateful for it now. Most teachers didn't work that hard.”

It is a rare moment that a former student thanks me for my teaching years when I really did care about their education and tried my hardest to deliver stellar teaching which was never recognized by my peers and administrators.  As a life-long Adjunct Professor, we always had to fight for our contracts each year because conservatives never got tenure or special privileges like the rest of the leftist brigade of teachers.

Many of my former students, too wrapped up in the leftist ideology indoctrinated into their brains full of mush since kindergarten, wore t-shirts with shocking messages or supporting appalling leftist causes. They did not understand reality and some even wore Marxist-worshipping and Che Guevara t-shirts to class because he was such a “cool” revolutionary.  

They continued to wear them to class even though I told them who he really was, how many innocents he had butchered in Castro’s regime and in South America.  I gave them lectures on Marx and what his professorial ideology did to millions around the world who became oppressed under communism and how 100 million innocents died under such ideology simply because they held divergent opinions from the ruling communist party line and dared to express them publicly or to their snitching families. My own father was killed by commies in 1989. The messages flew over their heads filled with brains that had been too brainwashed to leave room for truth and reality.

One of the Che Guevara t-shirt wearers found me on Facebook a few years back and apologized for having worn the offensive t-shirt to class even after I had told him that my Dad died at the hands of communist goons and how that piece of cloth he displayed in front of me three times a week angered and saddened me so.

One particular student I remember to this day, worshipped Hitler openly and in occasional class projects about historical figures students admired. Despite the fact that the history teacher Judy placed gruesome posters of Hitler’s Holocaust victims when they studied modern European history, I could not fathom such a fixation. He must have been just as evil in his dark heart as Hitler was. It did not surprise me when I found out that he is now a staunch Democrat and a lawyer in a small southern town.

On the Teacher Appreciation Week

My musings on this Teacher Appreciation Week:

Photo credit: Vasile Tomi

To my high school English teacher who said that I would never amount to anything because my parents were blue collar, I’m glad you were so wrong.

To my grammar and Romanian language and literature teacher, thank you for being so tough, I really learned a lot from you.

To my history teacher, Mrs. Avram, who challenged my thinking by playing the devil’s advocate, thank you. She was eventually allowed to immigrate to Israel under a strange deal Ceausescu made with Israel to allow Jews to repatriate in exchange for monetary payment in hard currency.

To our world literature teacher who brought his violin to class and played classical pieces that he thought matched the mood and the era of a novel we were reading and discussing, thank you. You taught me the love of music and the appreciation for fine writing.

To the math teacher who terrorized us with complex calculus that she could not solve herself, you taught me to be a better teacher than you were, to admit that I did not know something and that I should study it further instead of giving students a bogus answer.

To the gym teacher who tried to keep us physically fit and healthy even though we had so little food.

To the disciplinarian principal who did not mind doling our physical punishment as well as detention for the worst among us.

To the home room and physics teachers who tried very hard to indoctrinate us into the communist party, you failed miserably with me.

To the petite chemistry teacher who tried to teach us a lot of theory without the benefit of a lab and experiments - I learned the table of elements and enjoyed organic chemistry more.

To the home economics teacher who wore immaculately pressed clothes every day, thank you for teaching me how to sow, how to make clothes and a pattern, how to knit, cross stitch, and embroider. Unfortunately I failed at cooking because it bored me terribly. Who wants to be all day in the kitchen? Certainly not me. I like to cook simple food that does not require toiling in the kitchen for hours.