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Mr. Guttman, Mrs. Goldsmith and Miss Richter (who has been Ms. Berlin for a long time, but I was her first "best" student when she was fresh out of college), still alive. Dr. Silverman, Mrs. Citron, Miss LeBost, Mr. Weaver, all I believe now gone (50th reunion is later this month). There were a few others, including Miss Trachtenberg who became Mrs. Brandow over Christmas vacation in fourth grade, and who taught me Hawaiian geography that stuck with me when I finally made it to Hawaii. I was pretty blessed in a public school education. But it was Mr. Guttman (a proto-Walz but he's kept his hair) who taught me things like that the Vietnamese had a history and a culture that needed to be understood to understand the war, and that the Palestinians are people with valid interests to be protected, who stuck with me the most. He, along with a college teacher who was also a fairly observant Jew, were the ones who really opened my mind to the peoples of the world and how there aren't good guys and bad guys but guys whose interests and desires are in conflict and the conflict needs to be worked.

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Mr. Destefano, the band director. No strings (poor, rural, farm district), so we had a marching band and orchestral band. He had a rather fierce devotion to perfection. He drove a small group of students up to Cleveland one evening a week to take lessons with members of the Cleveland Orchestra, about a 120 mile round trip.

At the annual state band competition, there was one piece required of all participants and one piece each band or orchestra's choice. His choice was always from the college lists rather than the high school list.

My senior year, our piece was the Tannhauser Overture by Richard Wagner.

We kicked ass.

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Ta, Dok. Thank you, Miss Verelli and Miss Light (there was no Ms back then; I'm an old). Well done, Walz family! I'm very proud to be marrying a public school teacher. Neither Meccalopolis nor I had children, but he's been instrumental in introducing kids to their new culture (he teaches English as a new language, which is what they're calling ESL now). And he's two years from retirement, hooray!

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Thank you Miss Doering, Miss Bierman, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Lee, Mrs. Milliken!

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Thank you, Big Jear.

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Teaching kids is a very challenging and important job. Kids can be difficult. They aren’t fully mature critters yet and some of them don’t make it easy for teachers. I myself loved causing my teachers exasperation. I stopped short of eliciting anger, I just wanted them to give me the long stare. I craved the attention. Teachers are awesome and underpaid and under appreciated. Harris picked 2 great people for veep and Mrs veep.

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Joe Biden is bringing political prisoners home from Russian captivity. Kamala is a prosecutor and charismatic leader who Trump is terrified of. Mr. and Mrs. Walz teach kids, fight for free school meals and probably make lemonade on their porch in the summer. Trump is toast.

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I saw a political cartoon of Biden hugging one of the returning hostages with Chump off to the side yelling, "That's my hostage!"

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Honestly, I would find teaching high school exhausting, so I really admire those who do a great job at it!

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Just... high school was exhausting.

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The local Moms for Liberty chapter would have Mr Walz sacked for teaching that authoritarianism is bad.

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They might try, but I bet they'd fail. Football coach.

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I had terrific teachers, thanks mainly to my parents, who worked themselves into the ground to pay for me to go to the best and most expensive schools available, starting at second grade. Thank you and rest in peace, Mom and Dad.

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I did my best to be a good teacher, and received four Phi Theta Kappa nominations for my trouble. Nobody else in my department ever got a single one.

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I'd have to nominate Mr. Bald, 11th grade AP English. He used to make us do these things called 9 minute writings every day. Sometimes on a topic he gave us, sometimes whatever the hell we wanted to write about. Then he ended up giving us advice in comments in the margins. I can think of many teachers my kid had in public school who were excellent. I made sure to talk to his history teacher (who was retiring) at graduation to let him know the kid used to come home and tell me stuff they had talked about in class, which I thought was an excellent thing.

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He sounds great. I hope he was ironically hairy and beardy.

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These are the kind of teachers you remember for the rest of your lives; they're the kind that inspire you to great heights.

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As I’m reading this, I’m sitting in my office at school trying to prepare myself for my first year teaching culinary arts. I’m so excited, and so nervous. But to be reading about how wonderful an educator our future VP has been is inspiring me big time.

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I came across this recent interview of a former student of Tim Walz and it is quite good. He drove up from Baltimore, where he is a teacher, to attend the PA rally (although he didn't manage to get in).

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/08/08/tim-walz-was-my-teacher-what-i-learned-00173212

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For those of us that were absolutely obsessed with Clueless aren’t they giving Miss Geist and Mr. Hall

https://images.app.goo.gl/bCocNUkiru6KG2PQ8

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Mr. Anderson was my fifth grade teacher. He knew I didn't have a lot friends and got bullied. One day told me to bring my to school at we'd play catch. It was awesome. He was a lefty. He had a terrible burn on his hand I could see from the skin graphs. We talked about stuff. Baseball and school mostly and the bullies especially. He and the other Mr. Anderson spanked kids if they misbehaved. The bullies got spanked occasionally. For being jerks I guess. When mom died in 2007 Mr. Anderson came to the funeral at least 40 years since I saw him last. He said hello Sam. He hugged me. My kids were standing next to me and I introduced him to them. I told him back the Mr Anderson used to spank kids . He said with a laugh "just your dad". We all laughed.

After I got divorced in my 30's I got involved prarire restoration with a group of conservationists.i was encouraged by some mentors to take some classes. I returned to college to take botany, botany biology , soil taxonomy and others.

Prof. Freberg taught the botany classes at the local community College. He appreciated my background in prairie restoration and asked me a question in class one day. He asked me " do you know the difference between a botanist and a conservationist? Yeah sort of I said. Jay answered back" botanist get the girls." He was a great mentor Introduced me to nature in ways I never imagined. I still work in the fields today.

Thanks Jim and Jay all teachers who cared for us all.

Harris/Walz2024!

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