The best teachers from my childhood went above and beyond. They did things for our class that were well outside of what was expected, but these actions had an outsized impact on my life.
When I was twelve, Mrs. J would take a small group of us out of our scheduled class once every two weeks to run a full day workshop on a surprise topic. I remember one was on the life and works of Galileo, and how we tried to simulate the gravitational experiments he conducted at the Tower of Pisa.
I can’t remember much of the subject matter from these workshops, but I certainly remember how I felt. Bursting with energy, curiosity, and confidence. Mrs. J created an environment where asking questions was celebrated, where learning was a joy, and where the pursuit of knowledge was cherished.
Those workshops set a baseline expectation for me going forward. I expected learning to be fun and rigorous. And when future teachers found my incessant questions annoying, I wasn’t phased because those behaviours were validated by Mrs. J in earlier years, so I knew I should continue to question everything.
Twenty years later, the dividends from Mrs. J’s lessons are still paying a return. They influence how I approach new challenges at work, and will influence how I choose to raise my children.
That’s above and beyond.