Advice From My Drama Teacher
At the end of my senior in High School, my drama and debate teacher, Mrs. Donice Smith, asked to speak with me. She knew me not only from school, but also from church. She shared this:
"Not all of your college professors are going to appreciate your honesty and independent thinking. They are there to teach you what they know and most will not want to be argued with when you discover that they are wrong."
Mrs. Smith knew that I had strong opinions and often shared those with others around me. She also knew that I had a strong sense of right and wrong and felt it was my job to inform others when they were wrong. I am sure that she spoke with other teachers and knew that I had corrected my English teacher in middle school and my math teacher in high school. But they were wrong and somebody needed to tell them otherwise we would all be conjugating our verbs wrong or factoring for Y incorrectly. Mrs. Smith also knew that I had taken many strong stands for God over science. After all, one of my term papers in middle school was on creation versus evolution.
Mrs. Smith's advice helped to prepare me for the liberal world of academia called college. I was planning to be less vocal when I went to my first music class on my first day at the University of South Alabama. The professor was a transplant from Chicago and went on a rant about how he did not like the South because everybody was always trying to save you. He then asked, "What are they trying to save you from?" A girl sitting in a front row seat quietly said, "From hell." He quickly changed the subject and started teaching about music. I was very impressed by this answer and have just recently reconnected with this brave, God honoring girl through facebook. She is still serving God in the trenches of Hollywood.
While the academic elites in our world do not like to argue with us mental midgets of Christianity, they do respect our beliefs when we live them out regardless of the consequences. When my music adviser asked what I planned to do after graduation, I told him I was thinking I would teach on the college level. He simply stated, "Don't just consider Christian colleges because God needs Christians in state colleges as well." I was surprised because I did not think he knew I was a Christian. But as with Mrs. Smith, I guess professors talk with each other just as much as teachers do.
"Not all of your college professors are going to appreciate your honesty and independent thinking. They are there to teach you what they know and most will not want to be argued with when you discover that they are wrong."
Mrs. Smith knew that I had strong opinions and often shared those with others around me. She also knew that I had a strong sense of right and wrong and felt it was my job to inform others when they were wrong. I am sure that she spoke with other teachers and knew that I had corrected my English teacher in middle school and my math teacher in high school. But they were wrong and somebody needed to tell them otherwise we would all be conjugating our verbs wrong or factoring for Y incorrectly. Mrs. Smith also knew that I had taken many strong stands for God over science. After all, one of my term papers in middle school was on creation versus evolution.
Mrs. Smith's advice helped to prepare me for the liberal world of academia called college. I was planning to be less vocal when I went to my first music class on my first day at the University of South Alabama. The professor was a transplant from Chicago and went on a rant about how he did not like the South because everybody was always trying to save you. He then asked, "What are they trying to save you from?" A girl sitting in a front row seat quietly said, "From hell." He quickly changed the subject and started teaching about music. I was very impressed by this answer and have just recently reconnected with this brave, God honoring girl through facebook. She is still serving God in the trenches of Hollywood.
While the academic elites in our world do not like to argue with us mental midgets of Christianity, they do respect our beliefs when we live them out regardless of the consequences. When my music adviser asked what I planned to do after graduation, I told him I was thinking I would teach on the college level. He simply stated, "Don't just consider Christian colleges because God needs Christians in state colleges as well." I was surprised because I did not think he knew I was a Christian. But as with Mrs. Smith, I guess professors talk with each other just as much as teachers do.
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