Arezou Esmaeeli

 

Bryan Dunn

 

English 2, 6th hour

 

8 October 2015

 

Hero and Killer

 

             What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word, “hero?” What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you 

 

hear “killer?” The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear hero is teacher and the first thing to come to my mind when I hear killer is teacher.

 

How can a teacher be both a “hero” and a “killer?” Teachers come in a variety of shapes and sizes. All of them from different backgrounds and each one

 

is unique in his or her own way. Depending on who is the teacher, they can either lead you to a successful and happy life or a sad and lonely life.

 

              For the most part of  my life I have had teachers who were heroes. All of them would greet me in the mornings and wave goodbye to me in

 

the afternoon. All of them had warm smiling faces and always were willing to help me out if something were wrong. Not all teachers have to be kind

 

and cozy to be a hero. In fact, one of my greatest heroes is a teacher who wasn’t like that at all. He’s a big man with a built figure. He spent his

 

summers in the wilderness away from society. He would work hard everyday in order to stop the horrors that go on everyday in the world from

 

poaching to deforestation. That man is my eighth grade science teacher, Mr. Garthe. He was very opinionated but always listened to your opinion even

 

if it went against his. He didn’t like any messing around, strict man but he made the worst subject in school for me, the best. I never liked science. All

 

my science teachers in middle school made it seem like the most boring thing ever. When I  entered the eighth grade science classroom and took my

 

seat. I was ready for a boring lecture but Mr. Garthe comes in and starts giving a lecture all excited. You could tell he was very passionate about what

 

he taught which managed to get me excited. He had an end of the year unit where every eighth grade year, the eighth graders had to write a research

 

paper about different subjects that would end up to be twenty pages long. To my surprise, I found the research paper fun and I was able to pour my

 

heart out with my opinions, facts and statistics about various topics. Topics like energy, deforestation and global warming! Topics that I wouldn’t have

 

showed any interest in before him. The stuff he taught us in his class left a huge imprint on me so that whenever I get my own home, I’ll try to make

 

my lifestyle nicer for the Earth. I will try to get a few solar panels for my home, and buy a reusable bag for groceries instead of plastic.

 

            Now, let me tell you about the killer. This type of teacher is the most dangerous being on the school ground. Students who have hopes and

 

dreams can have them crushed by this person. The subjects they teach can make everyone begin to hate that subject. The killer teacher that I have had to

 

experience is my second-third grade music/violin teacher. On the outside, she looks normal and kind of like a nice person. She is kind to all the teachers

 

and greets them with a smile but once that classroom door closes and only the students are inside. She becomes something else. Not only is she strict but

 

she is mean. The thirty minutes spent every Wednesday in music felt like a whole day. I was only in second grade and she would make us stand and

 

sing. She would single anyone out and shame them for not singing good enough. She would scold us if we didn’t know the words and make mean faces.

 

 She made us play the violin and if one of us messed up she would look at them in a scary way and make all of us start the song over. She got mad

 

when she made us hold the violins with only our chins and one were to drop. The teacher that expects the best but doesn’t lead you to the best is a killer.

 

The teacher that always blames the student and doesn’t try to help is the killer. I still to this day find music to be the worst subject and never developed

 

a love for it. I would assume a lot of people have had a killer teacher once or twice in their life. The killer teachers, as mentioned before, had everyone

 

fooled. Everyone that matters, that is. This killer teacher will only show their inspiring side towards people with power. Those people would include

 

other teachers, principals and parents. However, those that had to go through their class would get the worst treatment possible. Similar to psychopaths,

 

killer teachers put on a mask. A very happy and friendly mask. Most of the time when a psychopath goes berserk and starts to threaten/kill people,

 

people who knew them were shocked. Why? That was because they manipulated anyone and everyone who had power to get them into serious trouble.

 

What makes the creativity killer of the school any different? As far as I’m concerned, they would have all the teachers and principal under their spell so

 

that they would be able to keep their job. The real terror happens only to those with the least amount of power, the student. Psychopaths usually showed

 

their scary side to people they didn’t believe could ruin their reputation. Killer teachers do the same.]

 

           Respect those teachers that try to lead you to success but disregard those that try to bring you down. Even though hero teachers can be the

 

gardener to the seeds of inspiration, killer teachers can take the seed out. However, even though the killer teacher can abuse the seed, you have the

 

people around you to help nurture/encourage the seed. Hero teachers can be the best guidance to a good life but the final decision rests in your hands.

 

Although hero teachers are better for guidance, killer teachers don’t have complete control over you. Never allow a killer to stop you from enjoying a

 

subject. There will always be heroes and supporters in your path of life, your job is to find them.