South Shores Academy is a fantastic high school. Indeed, many students who have graduated from South Shores have gone on to successful careers. Despite the outstanding faculty, there is one teacher who brings shame to the profession – the botany instructor. This botany course is the whole reason why South Shores Academy is rated 4.9 stars out of 5. Reader, please do not enroll in Mr. Snodgrass’ course. However, there are teachers at South Shores Academy. Mrs. Marvelous teaches the pediatrics class, and like herself, her class is marvelous. What makes these two teachers so different? The main factors are their personalities, subject mastery, and control over their classrooms.
Mr. Snodgrass is an utterly horrible teacher. Students and staff are baffled why he even teaches at South Shores Academy, ruining the magnet school’s reputation. He has a questionable personality, one that many deem unsuitable for teaching. Mr. Snodgrass is a lazy man, and doesn’t bother to grade student work: favored students receive “As”, everybody else – “Fs.” He hates the hard-working students because they expect teachers to teach! This lazy instructor favors only the high schoolers who kiss up to him. Many parents have emailed him about student grades, but he simply ignores their questions and concerns. Mr. Snodgrass is also extremely pessimistic. In a staff meeting, he expressed his completely bleak views of the academy and stood up to leave, leaving a shocked and disgusted union behind him. To add onto his indolence and internal misery, Mr. Snodgrass is racially biased. He scolded some Pacific Islander students during a lab exercise, assuming that they were supposed to be “good at math.” Mr. Snodgrass’ horrible personality renders him an unlikeable classroom failure.
When it comes to his understanding of the subject, Mr. Snodgrass is nowhere near being a real botanist. He bumbles to class everyday on loose limbs and barely knows what he’s talking about. Explaining concepts clearly – a basic requirement of teaching is almost alien to the horrible teacher. One time when scolding a student, he said, “You can always get to the level of discipline when you never dance with three-headed squirrel monkeys!” After yelling this outlandish comment, he promptly went back to teaching the vague lesson, leaving everybody exceptionally puzzled. It is to no wonder why many graduates from his course say they didn’t learn a thing. Mr. Snodgrass shows little understanding of botany. He picked some Oregon Grape Vine and brought it to his classroom for his students to study. Promptly two hours later, an ambulance departed from South Shores Academy. The ambulance, headed to South Shore Hospital, carried five people poisoned by Poison Oak. Because of Mr. Snodgrass’ amateurism in botany, he put his students’ health at risk. Mr. Snodgrass fails to make his lessons relevant to life, which helps students realize the importance of acquired concepts. He thinks that lesson relevance has no good purpose, so Snodgrass simply doesn’t tie what students learn to real life. One of the most important traits to have as a good teacher is a sense of humor, but Mr. Snodgrass is about as funny as a rock. This may be why Chase Snodgrass has no friends among the faculty. He doesn’t like jokes, and certainly hates using funny literary devices in teaching. In summary, Mr. Snodgrass doesn’t have any mastery over his subject, and doesn’t care whether the students are learning valuable information from botany class.
What may set Mr. Snodgrass aside from good teachers the most is his control over his classroom. Good teachers may be strict but kind in a classroom setting. Instead, he rules over his class in an authoritarian way, and is not at all kind to his students. On the first day of botany class, he made two students cry. On the second day, he made five people cry, and sent another to the principal’s office for not crying. One may clearly see why eight people transferred to Mr. Darwin’s ecology class on the third day of botany. Mr. Snodgrass is short-tempered and provoked easily. The students literally see steam blowing out of his ears as his face turns into a ripe apple. Mr. Snodgrass is not only authoritarianist, disrespectful, and hot-headed, he is also insensitive. When some of his students were poisoned by Poison Oak, he demanded that they stay in class instead of asking for immediate medical attention. Only when the students’ skin started swelling did he really note what he had done. To top all of this off, there have been rumors saying that Mr. Snodgrass didn’t really want to teach in the first place. He is currently 40 years old and was strongly advised to take the education path. He never wanted to teach but did anyways. In conclusion, Mr. Snodgrass is a horrible teacher with a miserable personality, little mastery over his subject, deteriorating control of his classroom, and no love for teaching high schoolers.
On the other side of the life sciences building lies a heavenly classroom, headed by no other than Mrs. Marvelous. Mrs. Marvelous teaches the pediatrics course at South Shores Academy, and her class is, well…rather marvelous! She and Mr. Snodgrass are so different that one could have never imagined that they teach at the same school. She inspires her young pediatricians with her wondrous personality, mastery over her subject, and her amazing control of the classroom.
Mrs. Marvelous is the best teacher in South Shores Academy. All the students and faculty are privileged to have her as a friend and guide. In opposition to Mr. Snodgrass’ questionable personality, Mrs. Marvelous’ personality is just brilliant. She is hard working and critically grades student work so that her students have a thorough understanding of the concepts which she is teaching. Unlike Mr. Snodgrass, she doesn’t play favoritism – plus, her least favorite people are the students who try to lick her boots. If a student isn’t happy about the grades, Mrs. Marvelous always invites him/her to discuss what could have been done better. The student learns how to improve and then implements the changes in his/her study habits. Mrs. Marvelous has an optimistic approach to every problem. At the same staff meeting where Mr. Snodgrass had shared his bleak opinions and stormed off, she had remarked on the tremendous improvements that South Shores Academy was making. Mrs. Marvelous has a different philosophy to tolerance. She believes that everybody has strengths and weaknesses, no matter their ethnicity, gender, or religious beliefs. She brings out student strengths and helps her young learners nourish their weak spots. Mrs. Marvelous doesn’t send people to the Principal because of their race – rather, she sends racist people to the Principal. She recently sent a kid to the principal’s office for teasing an Islamic classmate who fasted during lunch. Mrs. Marvelous’ reasonable and kind personality makes her popular among students, parents, and fellow teachers.
Possessing a 15-year-long experience as a pediatrician, Mrs. Marvelous has the sufficient expertise in order to teach the course at South Shores. She bolts into her classroom every day, ready to begin a new day of learning with her students. Unlike her floundering counterpart, she truly feels ready for each new day at school. Her long years of experience as an outstanding physician enables her to convey complex topics to students in a clear manner. Many of her graduates come back to South Shores Academy to thank her and visit, while none of Mr. Snodgrass’ students ever stop by (not like Chase Snodgrass cares anyway). Mrs. Marvelous always has up-to-date materials and engaging labs. She has never ever mixed anything up, since she is not an amateur in her subject. “Mixing things up can be fatal for your child patient,” she commonly reiterates. She always ties her lessons into real life, as she thinks it is essential to developing a life-long grasp around biochemistry. Much to her students’ delight, she once brought in a whole bag of marshmallows and pretzel sticks, and told the students to model one of the biological macromolecules. She instructed students to build the model, examine it, and then destroy it (eat it). As for class engagement, she is usually “humerus.” In yesterday’s class, “Alright everybody! I aorta tell you how to measure blood concentration. I lobe how you guys are learning it, but this concept is as hard as enamel. The blood concentration may seem tough, but if you pay attention, you’ll find it tibia okay! Ready? Let’s bone!” All students groan and chuckle, but at least they find Mrs. Marvelous’ literary devices and humor to be helpful in memorization. In summary, Mrs. Marvelous masters her subject, and minds whether the students are learning valuable information from pediatrics class.
Mrs. Marvelous has much better classroom control than her counterpart. She is strict with her students, but not overly strict like Mr. Snodgrass. She is kind to her students and understands how they may resent an overly authoritarian teacher. Julie Marvelous is respectful and listens to what her students have to say before offering her own point of view. Throughout her tenure at South Shores, she has never inadvertently or intentionally upset her students. Mrs. Marvelous is truly a great teacher to experience.
So, reader, it is now your choice. Since science is a required course, will you take botany or pediatrics at South Shores Academy?
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