Memory. . .

I was just cleaning out my room. (Yes, I do accomplish that ONCE in a while.) I was going through one of my boxes and came across some envelopes. I was opening them to see what they were and if I still needed them when I found one that brought back a memory. (I think I'll hang on to this one.)

Most people who know me know that I was studying to go into teaching, to teach high school level Spanish specifically. I was not able to accomplish that dream and will not be going back to do it at this point. In the end it would not be worth all of the work to get back to that level and most definitely I would not be able to justify the severe paycut. (A terribly sad commentary considering that I now earn more money in my semi-professional job/career that I now have and enjoy for the most part.)

College was fun and I learned a great deal. The hardest part of the whole thing were the two semesters that I spent student teaching. Student teaching at the high school level usually only lasts one semester, but for me it lasted two as I attempted to demonstrate various proficiencies that are expected of any teaching candidate. (I was not able to pass the first semester for many reasons, so I was given a second chance and took another stab at it a second semester at a different school than the first.)

Student teaching, and really teaching in general, is full of so many challenges, from the fairly obvious of grading papers to the more profound and difficult aspects: how to keep a classroom of 25 students all engaged, learning the subject that you are presenting, and meeting the needs of each of those students to the best of one's ability. Oh, yes, and don't forget that it's not just 25 students either. It's classes of 25 students, and you usually have 4-6 classes. Grading papers, all 6000 of them each week (or so it seems), certainly is a big part of it, but does not even compare with the rest of what comes with the job. Spending 3-4 hours each night planning lessons for the coming days, weekends thinking about the lessons for the coming days. An actual teacher would be able to vouch for the fact that this is not even the tip of the iceberg and not even the appetizer course of the 7 course dinner that is teaching.

Now, having said this, this blog entry is not about all of that really hard stuff, but just a simple memory of one simple occurrence during my time that I did my student teaching at Berthoud High School in the Spring of 2003.

During the course of that winter semester, the school's boy's basketball team had a great season. Tim and Dimitri and so many others played so well and worked so hard on the court and were so much fun to have in class, among so many others whose names I no longer recall and whose faces have now faded from memory.

As a result of the post-season victories and for playing so well, the boys team was able to go to the state playoffs and play at the Pepsi Center in Denver, CO. I believe the game they made it to may have been the quarterfinals before they were sadly defeated and sent packing.

Because of the job that I had while I was student teaching (even though I had the workload of a teacher, a student teacher actually pays tuition for the experience/opportunity to student teach), I was able to borrow a pretty nice SLR camera (if you don't know what SLR is, just picture those big fancy, expensive-looking cameras that the pros use) and take on the bus. I went to the game as one of the faculty chaperons. The school was given one media pass to use for taking pictures on the floor at the Pepsi center (on the sidelines of the court while the game is happening). One student used the media pass during the first half of the game while I spent that time up in the stands taking pictures of all of the students and others that were able to ride down on the bus(es). During the second half we traded and I was able to go down on the floor and take pictures. I'm not much of a photographer but it was a digital camera and a nice enough one that really all you need to worry about with the camera is getting a good composure, the camera can handle most everything else.

I don't recall how many pictures I took, of course there were some good ones and some others that were a little bit fuzzy or otherwise were just bad pictures. After the game, I downloaded the pictures to my laptop at home. A few days later one of my cooperating teachers suggested it might be a good idea to make copies of the pictures, putting them on a cd, and giving some of those to some of the teachers at the school. I think I made 5 discs and passed them out to some that I thought would like to have them, the basketball coach, principal, a couple of others, and the yearbook teacher. I gave them the discs probably during the last week few weeks of school. A few weeks went by and I hadn't given it much thought, until I got a letter in the mail one day. That brings me to the point of this blog. I copy the text of it below:


June 9, 2003



Dear Ben Echols,



Hello! I hope this letter finds you somehow. I wanted to say thank you for the fabulous digital pictures. I got them just in time!!! Yearbook staff was finishing the yearbook on Monday, June 2nd and we were having the worst time with the State pages. (State refers to the state basketball tournament of course.) We lost the State basketball pictures and we were
trying to make the best of a horrible layout. I just happened to stop by my mailbox on the way out the door that afternoon and found your CD. I almost cried tears of joy when I read the cover. So, I downloaded the horrible, lost-cause state pages and took them home to "fix" on my laptop. I almost cried again when I opened your CD and saw the amount of pictures and quality. I stayed up until midnight fixing the pages to meet our Tuesday morning deadline. I did not even get to go through all the photos on the CD-no time. I ended up putting 4 of your photos on the state pages and a smile on the sports editor's face the next morning when I told him the incredible news. YOU SAVED THOSE PAGES!!! You have made us look good and I gave you photo credit. I wanted to say a BIG thank you and let you know you have made a permanent mark on BHS forever. Anyway. . . I hope your summer is going well and good luck!!! Again, THANKS.



Sincerely,



(JQ)

BHS Yearbook Advisor



(Initials have replaced the Yearbook Advisor's name for purposes of this blog.)

I won't say that I think often about that experience, though it does cross my mind from time to time. I just thought this would be a nice different kind of story to write and add to my blog. I won't really take credit for anything. The pictures were pretty good, but I think the pictures were only a small part of it. I can't really take credit for anything else, because it was not my idea to share them with the rest of the school. (I mean that not to be impolite in any way. I just probably would not have thought to do that myself. I think that was someone else that was inspired to tell me to share them with some of the teachers.) I'm sure I still have those pictures on a disc somewhere in one of my boxes. This isn't so much about the pictures but just one of the experiences I had during my brief experience student teaching.