When I was in the fourth grade I had a teacher that helped me realize that I wanted to teach. He was a passionate teacher, whose approach to teaching was uncommon. His vision that all of his kids can learn the basics, was evident to everyone in the class.
Mr. Ashley took the troubled students with a few of us normal students. Some of these kids were "problem" students, meaning that the school could no longer really control them. No one that is, except Mr. Ashley. You knew from the beginning that you were treated the way you deserved to be treated. If you caused problems, then he caused problems for you. The same for being good, if you were good you were rewarded with games, free time, or maybe some television. .
One of the biggest differences in his class was the way he treated every student the same. In some classes, the girls were the teachers" pets. Or maybe the "well-to-do" students were treated better then the poor students. Well, not in this class. You did not get special treatment for being "someone," instead you got the treatment you earned.
Mr. Ashley believed in teaching only three subjects. They were history, math, and English. He said that if you wanted to know about rocks, wait until you were in middle school and you could take a whole semester of it. He said that history was his favorite because it shows what works and what doesn't. Math and English were important because they were building blocks for anything a person wants to do.
So everyday you would come to class and study those three subjects. You would study them through different means. For example, when we studied the U.S. Constitution we didn't use textbooks. We used a play. Each person in class acted out a part, from the founding fathers to the men working on the street outside. We would do this over and over, always changing parts. This allowed us to understand the Constitution and the things that were done to arrive at it.
