The Laughing Wolf

Some Thoughts On A Teacher

Misha’s kind thoughts below triggered a train of thoughts this morning, that brought me around to one of those special people who made a huge difference in my life. He was one of about three teachers that I can say changed my life for the better, and I wish he had been able to stay a teacher.

Cap’n is what I will call him, in the interest of privacy. Besides, he was a captain and it was what some of us called him then and not just because he coached us on the rifle team. Ninth grade history is not a subject that most students look forward to, but most of us did because of him. We had heard that he was different, tough but fun, and they were right. He was tough, fair, provocative, informal, formal, and so much more.

Rather than wallow in the words, I want to describe one particular thing he did that really made things come alive. He had us play a multi-player, multi-class war game. Bur not just any war game, it was a game set in Europe and we became the leaders of Europe. I was Minister of War for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and it may have started out Austria but it was damn well a growing empire when the game was called.

So what, you say? Anyone can play a canned war game? Yep, they can. But we did not. Everyone of us had to do research. How many miles of railroad did each country have at the given time? How long to build a mile of railroad in the time? What was the GNP? On what was the currency based? What was the exchange rate between different currencies? How was the government set up? Did they have telegraph? If so, how many miles, etc.? What alliances, if any, did each country have? Who were their allies and enemies? Heck, I think we even got into textile production figures during this time. All of this was in addition to researching troops, ships, weapons, and all the other “normal” things in a war game.

Once all the data was gathered, we set up our initial positions, laid out infrastructure, made alliances, and started the game. It only lasted a few days because we disrupted other classes with it, bursting in on them with things like “Oh my god, the French just sank the English fleet!” (Don’t ask. Bad luck of a war game) Other teachers did not like the Cap’n and this just gave them more ammunition. He was familiar with the students. He was untraditional. He failed to respect moldering seniority. He was innovative. He got results.

Yes, he did that. You see, we learned something far more valuable than just the net worth of Austria, or how to sack Switzerland in two days (Yea!), or even the importance of logistics in campaigns. We learned something beyond rubies and pearls: How to formulate and ask the right questions, and how to go look up the answers. We learned research. We learned how to learn.

I won’t even go into the other things, about how he gave me confidence in myself and set me up for some of the more interesting things I have done in my life. For what he did for almost all of us (save the person who blew up their fleet) was give us a love of learning so that we could go do it on our own. No wonder some of the other teachers hated him.

The sad thing is, the Cap’n left teaching after his baby daughter was born. The teacher politics and such played a role, but the real driver for him was that he could make more money as a security guard than as a teacher. That little girl became his world, and doing right by her his top priority. So he left. A very sad commentary on the esteem in which we hold teachers, and the rate of pay when being a security guard at a department store pays more.

Thanks Cap’n. Thanks for all you did. We hated you with a passion for that damned term paper, and for the tests. But you prepared us well for the largest tests of all. Thanks really isn’t enough.

NOTE: For those interested, the secret to our military success in the Empire was the fact that I had a hand in laying out the rail lines. I created something called a modified star pattern that allowed every major city to be directly connected to each other, and then ran lines to the border of neighboring countries near their rail lines. Net result was that we could move troops and supplies faster than anyone else, marshal on the border, attack, link to enemy rail, and then engage in mobile warfare. Our troops got there fustest with the mostest, and we put a heck of a skeer in friends and enemies alike. :) The other thing we did were sealed orders, so that if certain contingencies happened, we could react even if the “leaders” were in another class. We did well in the game, and according to the Cap’n, we would likely have conquered Europe well before the planned end of the game. Tactics and strategy are good, but think logistics as well.

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