I fancy myself to be an excellent teacher. Not just as a school teacher, but I love to teach young people some of the important things about life, a portion of their education that is woefully lacking. I always joked about having taught Marines to program computers, like it was the hardest thing one could ever do (it pretty much is, too). I'd tell an interviewing Principal, "If I can teach a bunch of Jar heads to program a computer, I can teach English to teenagers." They'd laugh, but it would stick with them, and I'd get a teaching job.
My students, especially the Marines, always learned a lot from me, because my lessons were based upon my personal experiences, from programming computers, to riding motorcycles (I taught that in the Navy, too.), to relating to a piece of literature, I gave my students examples from my own life. It may have been a sort of "been there, done that," but students learn best from people that have more than just a knowledge of a certain topic.
Okay, I'm not going to make the claim of the Strother Martin character in Rooster Cogburn and The Lady, that "I've been everywhere; done everything; know everybody. That's why I can say people are no damned good." I love that line, but I haven't been everywhere, haven't done diddly, and have but a few friends, in all honesty. I sure as Hell can act like it, though, because I've been through enough, and at least went outside of the US several times. I've stopped in ports all along the southern European coastline, and a couple in North Africa. I lived on an US airbase in Japan for six months, and saw a little of that side of the world, too. Closer to home, I've been to a number of places in Mexico, and both ends of the Panama Canal, Cologne and Panama City, so I feel safe to say I've been a few places, anyway.
Everyone, now days, talks about their "bucket list," things they'd like to do before they die, but I can't. For one, it's too long to be just a list; an inventory, perhaps, but certainly more than a list. It's liable to stay that way, too, because I can't do certain things anymore, and I'm not in a financial position to do the rest. I've been able to do a couple of things, like visit the Acropolis in Athens, the pyramids in Egypt, the Colosseum in Rome, and see the Rock of Gibraltar, but that hardly scratches the surface. The best part of my visits to foreign lands was meeting the people, though, everywhere I went, I met wonderful people. My first visit to Europe was pretty much a "Pub Crawl," but I got to see how Europeans reacted to English-only Americans. Subsequent sorties beyond the US borders went a whole lot better, and I met the most wonderful people.
I learned, on that first "Med Cruise," that when one approached a Greek in Athens, and pretty much demand that he speak English, one of two things happened: either the Greek was more interested in taking the Americans money, or he'd claim "No Engleesh," and walk away. When one approached a Greek in Athens, and inquired (in Greek) if he spoke English, almost everyone did, and all appreciated the courtesy. One taxi driver in Athens (and one in Istanbul, too), would have us schedule times to meet him, and he would drive us for the entire day. We got to meet their families, and shared food in their homes. It was like we were part of their families for a day, something every sailor abroad really enjoys. It makes us feel... normal. None of those people would remember me now, most likely, so I can hardly claim I know them.
I tend to get along okay in almost any group of people, and I've done it in some rather diverse groups, too. Once, on the Caspian Sea side of the Dardanelles, we drank vodka with, and learned Russian folk songs from a group of Soviet Navy guys because our Turkish driver wanted to show us the inland sea. We had an outrageous time, swapping insults on our Presidents, and doing normal "guy in a bar" stuff. All under the watchful eye of the KGB, which was probably the funniest thing of all. The KGB-guy didn't speak English. Two of the Russian sailors did. He tried to break us up, but the senior Russian sailor basically told him to mind his own business, in a rather profane Russian way. We all left with new-found "friends," who just happened to be our enemies, but we were watched the entire time.
By the time I got to college, at age 40, I had sufficient knowledge of everything my instructors covered, to the point where I feel that I really didn't learn anything in college. I struggled a little in the literature studies, until I realized I knew most of the periods, common themes, and styles from my own reading. The rest, the Liberal Arts crap, was way too easy. I was dealing with teachers who had not been outside of an academic setting since they were five. Every single one of them (well, with the exception of one) was a screaming, bleeding liberal. Idealistic as all hell, but never having had to face life in the real world, they were easy prey. In one class, a fellow student I knew from some of the morning coffee house discussions asked me how I did it. "How do you, knowing what you know, being the conservative person you are, put up with all of the liberalism around you?" I basically told him that I visualize the instructor's point of view, throw in a hand full of unicorns and rainbows, and see it for the cartoon it really is. After he got done laughing, he wrote it down.
While I still maintain that I didn't actually learn anything at college, I freely admit that it gave me an opportunity to look at what I did know from several differing viewpoints, but even that wasn't new to me. By the time I got to college I'd been married 17 years, had three kids, done a 20-year career in the Navy, and experienced things I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I've looked at a lot of things, from a number of perspectives many times. As I said, only one of my instructors understood the world as I did, a retired Army Colonel, who taught Editing, mostly. Fortunately, I caught him in a Lit class, and we got along from Day One.
On a warm May afternoon in 1997, at the age of 46, I was bestowed by the Regents of the State of California a Baccalaureate Degree in English - Language and Literature. Having played all of the games, jumped through all of the hoops, I had the piece of paper that said I actually knew all of the stuff I knew. Tell that to the student loan people.
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