Marquessa Matthews challenged herself and other bloggers to answer 31 questions during the month of March. You should check out hers and comment below with a link if you’re playing along!

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March 9 – Has a teacher ever changed your life? How so?

Jayden: Absolutely. My first grade teacher (who I thought hated me) recommended me for gifted. Later, I went back and worked with her class to read to the younger students and she was so nice to me. I don’t know if it was my perception or her attitude that changed, but it made a huge difference in my understanding of teachers, even at that young age.

Richard: Let me tell you about Frank Peters. Frank Peters was older than the university he taught at, and possibly the universe itself. Like most professors, he had some student advisees.

One day, one of his advisees came to his office. He was a senior, who only needed one class to graduate (because my university was terrible, and people frequently had to take an extra semester for one class.)

“What should I take, Doctor Peters?” asked the student.

And Frank Peters, whose wisdom was infinite, said, “You should take six gyms.”

This caused the young man to freak out a little, which was not unusual when Frank gave advice.

“But Doctor Peters,” he said, “What will companies say when I apply for jobs and they look at my transcripts?”

“No one looks at those anyway!” said Frank Peters. “They don’t care what courses you took, or what your GPO is,” GPO was not an abbreviation the college had used for at least a millenia. “And if they do, they’ll just think you’ll be cool to have around at the company picnic.

The student wound up taking three gyms. He got a job somewhere down south as a professional frisbee player at company picnics.