teacher
...ting situation. On the first day of school, I go into my U.S. History class and see a fairly old woman who looks annoyed for some reason. Then she gets up and introduces herself. Then she hands you a thick packet with what you will be accomplishing that semester, my first exposure to the idea of a syllabus. Well, she talks about how we will be working and learning to get ready for college; and this is my freshman year! Well, I was rudely surprised and at first was convinced I was going to hate her and the class. Well, hate at first sight is never a good way to start off a relationship of any sort, and so I put that idea firmly in the back of my mind and just didn’t think about it. I found that this course of action was wise indeed. Mrs. Ketron turned out to be the teacher who best prepared me for college. She had you go through all of the steps of writing an essay: outline, notes, first draft, revision, and final draft for your first few essays. Later she allowed you to do the essays your own way. This way of writing has helped me write many papers here at college, although I do not do every step. She showed the class how to take tests well, how to write good essays, and how to give presentations professionally. Each of us had to teach a class about a particular person or group from American history; one per semester. This showed us how to research, how to give good speeches, and how to prepare for a class. Also we had to grade each other based on style, facts, and other criteria. This showed us how to look at speeches critically and how to observe speakers. We also had various debates about different parts of American History. The two that I remember the best were one on Andrew Jackson and one about the industrialists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We would ha...