For three days, I’m using this space to brag on three of TCA’s excellent teachers. These three short vignettes are about professionals who walk the talk of continuous improvement.
Cynthia Storrs is one of those teachers. Before joining our staff at The Classical Academy, Cynthia taught for many years at the Black Forest Academy in Germany. As students often say, Mrs. Storrs is tough, fair, and passionate. That’s a triple-threat teacher in my book.
- Without toughness, a teacher can be a pushover.
- Without fairness, a teacher loses respect and polarizes the class into favorites and outcasts.
- Without passion, a teacher is monotonous.
Because she combined these three characteristics while teaching at BFA, Mrs. Storrs was invited back and flew across the pond to speak at graduation a year after she left the school. That’s enduring affection. One way a teacher earns that kind of admiration is through enduring learning.
This summer, Mrs. Storrs attended a special seminar on Emily Dickinson in Amherst, Mass. Through the National Endowment for the Humanities, she met and learned with 80 other Dickinson enthusiasts. Watching Cynthia talk about reading the original manuscripts and transcribing handwritten manuscripts reminded me of the energy of THIS GUY. She radiated something we don’t often associate with public school teachers—joy. You can’t fake joy. And you can’t fool students with manufactured passion. When you have it, you want more. When you get more, you share more and everyone around you basks in the glow.
Do you radiate passion? Could you? Will you?
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