Educator of the year
John O’kneski








Boring, arrogant, and useless. Boring as in dull and makes you think it’s sucking the very life out of you. Arrogant as in conceited and thinking they’re better than you and everyone else around them. Useless as in… well… USELESS. What do all these things have in common, you ask? They describe the majority of this generations educators. Generally speaking, children hate school, and therefore associate teachers with school, so they end up hating every teacher they ever meet. That’s not me: I hate schools only if there are facts, not just stereotypes about how hard it is made up by lazy fat people who flunked the fifth grade nine times. Homework? Easy, just time-consuming. Paying attention? Please, I sit through eight to ten hour chess games without moving a muscle or losing focus ONCE. Staying organized? I’ll admit; I’m not the best at this, but I know where to find MY stuff, and, even If I didn’t, I still wouldn’t HATE school. No, I hate school because the teachers frickin’ SUCK. Seriously, who the heck pays these people to teach? If someone brought up the subject of school, that’s the exact response, or at least a pretty good summary, of what I would say. At least, until eighth grade.






Now, granted, eighth grade had, no doubt, some of the worst teachers I had ever seen. From Mrs. X, who yelled at people to listen to her when no one was talking to Mrs. Y, who basically passed everyone in her class with an A or a B no matter how bad you were, how much work you did, or how many times she said she’d fail you. But, there was ONE good teacher among all the bad ones: one that was basically worshipped throughout the entire school: Mr. Lingenfelter. Mind you, this essay isn’t about him, but he was the one who showed me that all teachers weren’t just stupid and thought they were the best thing since bacon.






Mr. Lingenfelter actually knew how to teach a class, keep it under control, and make people look forward to going there. I knew kids who said that they could survive school ONLY because of Mr. L. Then, eighth grade ended, and I felt like I was never going to meet a good teacher again: my mom signed me up for a military school. I was expecting things like yelling, marching, and numerous pushups given to me by all the teachers. In short, I was expecting all the teachers to be strict and mean. But, I was genuinely surprised when, after I got used to the classes, I realized that there wasn’t one good teacher, or two good teachers: they were ALL good teachers! There’s one that sticks out in particular: one who I think has to be the greatest, if not one of the greatest, teachers of all time, Mr. John O’kneski, my civics teacher! Now, I know what you’re wondering; what makes a good teacher, and what makes Mr. O so good at his job. Well, he’s good at his job because he’s good at the things it takes to be a good teacher; ironically, these things are the EXACT opposites of the things that make a bad teacher. To be a good teacher, you have to be fun, respectful, and useful. Oh, you don’t know what I mean by that? Well, let’s elaborate on them then, shall we?

Let me guess: you think that if a teacher’s fun, they must not teach you much, right? WRONG! Mr. O teaches you by having fun! For example, when we were going over what it meant to be impeached, did he spend a whole eighty-something minutes going over why Andrew Johnson got impeached? No, we went over an impeachment trial he could actually make jokes from: Bill Clinton’s trial. Now, mind you, I LOVE politics, and I can probably sit through a class where we explained Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial (and not just because I already understand it) and be completely interested the entire time. But, a good teacher doesn’t teach to keep the interested kids interested. That’s not a good teacher. A good teacher teaches to get the rest of the kids interested. So, how’d Mr. O go about this, you might be wondering? He explained Bill Clinton’s trial in the funniest way possible. For example, here’s one of his comments from it (the facts not might be all right, this is just from memory). “Bill Clinton got impeached because he lied under oath. See, when he was talking to the president of (I think) Saudi Arabia, his intern was under the desk, and she was mmm-hmm.” See, the WAY he said that last part though not only made it completely obvious what was going on, but it was funny too! “So, when the courts asked him about it, he said I did not have sex with that woman. Then, the woman, Monica Lewinsky, came out and reported that the evidence was there.” When the class looked at him funny, he continued “the evidence is on the dress, I have the evidence right here!” As if on cue, everyone started laughing like crazy. To fully understand this moment in civics class, you had to be there! And, believe it or not, that wasn’t only one of his classes like that: I don’t know if he learned this stuff in college, or if it just comes to him naturally, but damn, he’s good.

Out of all three of the things it takes to be a good teacher, this is, in my opinion, the most important; without this one, you can never truly bond with your teacher, and then, as a result, you’ll never think of them too highly. So, the question remains, how does a teacher be respectful towards his students? Well, I think I’ll answer a question with a question. So, why do kids, primarily teens, not like listening to their parents? The answer is simple, it’s respect. See, teens are at that point in their life when responsibility and pressure is put on them a lot, so they think they deserve respect for going through all that. But, parents see them as just children who do what they supposed to, so that often leads to adults hating the teen years in their children. Mr. O gets around that, and he does it without even trying. It’s simple really. See, like all teachers, Mr. O has to hand back papers to the kids, and when he does this, if you did well, he’ll tell you so. Now, does that seem hard? I mean, all the other teachers do that, but here’s Mr.O’s twist on it that I love: he’ll call you out for doing bad, too. For example, if you don’t turn in your homework assignment, it’ll go something like this. “Mmmmmm, looks a little short. Campbell, Means, Schwing… where’s yours?” He’ll ask the remaining student. Then, they’ll sadly mutter out that they don’t have it, and he’ll say something along the lines of this “well, whatever. You know, children, what happens if you don’t do your homework? Then, he’ll call on a student who’s raising their hand to answer his question, and they’ll say “they fail”. And, then he’ll say “and what’s sad is that the ones who are passing are the ones that do their work, and the ones that are failing are the ones who are failing, so… whatever.” This is true respect, and his parents probably taught it to him. That is, why you should respect everyone and how to respect everyone. Mr. O is unarguably one of the best at this part of being a good teacher. Why, he might even be the best!

Out of all the things that it takes to be a good teacher, this one is the one that will mainly determine whether or not a student will pass your class or not. To elaborate on this, I’m going to ask you all a question. Why does the average American hate math, science, and Spanish? For those of you who say that it’s hard, that’s part of it, but that’s not why those subjects gain more hate than any of the other classes. The reason American kids hate those classes but can tolerate the others is simple: usefulness. Why will I need this? Why do I need calculus to become a dentist or a cop? See, that’s where Mr. O comes in: he makes his class seem genuinely useful. How? Well, first of all, every time we go into class, we start off with him showing us a video on current politics from… well… anywhere! He shows us beyond the small, sad little state of Delaware, beyond the northern part of America, and even beyond America. From Syria’s chemical weapons to Chris Christie’s bridge scandal, we truly see why this stuff is important. Not only that, but Mr. O asks the class questions about why the video was important after it, so that way he can get our opinions on it. Not only that, he always shares his opinion and his reasonings, so that way we know even more. If a student doesn’t know why or how something will benefit them in the future, they generally will just not care about whether or not they fail it: hence why America is sooooo bad at education right now. Oh, you want another example? Well, how about this: tons of kids do great in Mr. O’s class, passing with A’s and B’s consistently, unlike Spanish, which most kids do terrible in. Mr. O does a great job at this step, I’d have to say, out of all three, this is the one he has the most success in: barely anyone has less than a B average in his class!

Why is this important, you’re asking me? You really want to know? And, for those of you saying that it’s informative, or it’s to tell the connection between a student and his teacher, you’re dead wrong. See, kids like Mr. O; kids love him. But, out of all his students, I’d have to say I probably like him the most. We share some common similarities: I’m fun, and I’m useful. But, most kids that go to my school are like that. No, the main thing we have in common is that we’re both respectful. Not just that we’re both respectful, though: but the way that we’re both respectful. We both comment on the job people did, and we both reward good jobs, and we criticize bad ones. Not only did Mr. O do a good job; he did a GREAT job. So, how will I reward this? I already do great in his class, and I’m already 100% interested. So, I’ll do the one thing that I can do: make sure that someone other than myself takes notice of the great job he’s done, and that he’s currently doing. So, I’m nominating him for the Educator of the Year award: I can’t think of any teacher- no, EDUCATOR, who deserves it more!