Spirit of the teacher

Imagine your school Principal challenges the students to raise 500 pounds of food for the Daily bread food bank and says if we were to do that she would volunteer to feast on ants,larvaes and crickets.What would you do?I will tell you what we would do,we would eagerly jump at the opportunity to see her do that or fail doing that and get humiliated if she has been a not so likeable one,we would perhaps put in all our energy and double up the efforts to make sure the goal is definetly met over and above the required margin.Atleast that was what I would do!Its too good an opportunity to miss!comeon ,don't tell me you wouldn't rub your hands in glee and gather around to see the fun!

So perhaps this particular Principal truly underestimated her students that they wouldn't meet the goal,infact they did,they did meet the goal and not just met it but met it with such a huge margin!In the end, they raised more than 1,100 pounds of incredible edibles and true to her vow, the woman at the top rose to the challenge.

So began the day at a jam packed gymnasium of Dallington Public School in North York,Toronto and the Principal Danila Duliunas amidst of the chanting student crowd "Eat it ,eat it" started to consume her a la carte meal.It began with a slimy larvae snack that resembled maggots(you can insert your yucks and ewws here)which didn't go well at first and then followed the ants,then a few crickets and finally as a dessert some worms!She actually went through it fear factor style but was such a good sport that she even joked about it and told the students "Hey kids,this stuff is no good,I wouldn't really recommend it for you".I totally applaud this woman!amazing spirit and what a way to teach the kids about a noble cause.She is now ranked as the "super cool" teacher by the very kids who perhaps used to feel bugged out by her.I would perhaps loved to have had such a "cool" teacher too!:)

This perhaps was not the only case,I had read of another such incident where one more teacher challenged her students if each grade met its goal in a book-reading contest, she would eat worms.And when they did she went ahead and met her promise!Many might feel this way of motivation is not necessary and perhaps not healthy and not the right image for a teacher to behave,I am not recommending all teachers start practicing to eat worms to motivate students but I think having fun with the students can be a real motivator.Perks by teachers has always been a motivation to ace those tests to many of us.I had a teacher who used to treat her students with chocolate sundae everytime someone topped the test,my aunt who is also a teacher teaching grade 4 and 5 bakes a lovely walnut cake for her students whenever they do well on the tests,maybe those little perks did go a long way!

We used to have a Physical education teacher Miss J who was nothing but pure terror.She used to dress up in all white shirt and trousers with her hair pulled up in a tight bun at the back and black sunglasses!She was a well built lady and the whole combination plus a grim face used to remind us of Darthvader in white.It was an all girls high school and no boy would ever dare to enter the campus under her watchful eye.But boys still sneaked in but god only would have saved them if ever they got caught!Miss J was however a wonderful teacher,she made us sweat it out during the basket ball and running sessions and would train us with an iron hand.Our team got selected to the interstate basketball tournament and we spent more time than ever with her.At that time however we were not confident nor had an drive to win,it was all fun.She used to try her best to motivate us to snap out of that fun attitude and get the killer attitude:)One fine day just few weeks before the tournament she came to us and sat with us and asked us what would actually motivate us more?One of my friend who was more bolder than the rest jokingly blurted out "Miss J,mayabe if you promise us that you would get a makeover perhaps that would really motivate us" we thought she would give that grim look and burn us all down with another marathon practice session as a punishment but to our surprise she actually took it up and looked at the group and said "I accept,you girls win this for me and you will see me in a total different look" It took us a minute to see that she was serious (on second thoughts,she always was)But it really made us take the game a lot more serious,the motivation of having an opportunity to see her in a different look with her hair down was something we teenagers wouldn't miss could we?So we trained more hard.The day of the match as we nervously sat waiting for it to begin our motivation perhaps was only Miss J somehow we wanted to do it for her and to my friend who kept saying she wanted to see her in tank tops!:)we did manage to win the match.For us more than the win it was also the excitement of having to see our grim physical education teacher shed her Darthvader look.And so it did happen,in front of a big crowd of crazy high school girls cheering,Miss J arrived on stage looking all stylish with a skirt and a lovely blouse with make up and her hair let down and flowing and minus her sun glasses,a great pair of heels and a big wide smile!(we all fell off our chairs looking at her)she looked lovely and as one of my friends commented she looked quite elegant and graceful.Infact all the other teachers were also staring at her.She totally rocked.

It really was so worth it.She laughed with us that day,took us all out for dinner and even asked us how we found her look.Maybe that day we realised she was such a warm person and what she portrayed to us was in order to keep us in line and not because she was a Darth vader.We made her promise that she will wear other than just white to school and she did.She remained close to all of us even after we left high school.Even today though retired she continues to coach kids and remains just as amazing!

So I'm now running out of motivation to write anymore.Maybe I should go fix up some snack.Creepy crawlies anyone?:)
All you folks have a great weekend!