Mr. Aylor began the first day of Advanced Placement Latin class stating: "Several years ago, I had a pupil named Iris. Class after class, she kept winking at me. Finally, one day, I just had enough and I said, 'Iris! Put a lid on it!'" I rolled my eyes and chuckled. Having taken Latin with Mr. Aylor for four consecutive years, this was not the first time I had heard this pun, and most likely it would not be the last. With a subject matter as dead – pun definitely intended – as Latin, humor became an absolutely essential element for Mr. Aylor in hooking the students into the subject matter. He did not always succeed in hooking every student into the material, but he tried and tried and tried again. And through his persistence, he showed all of us how much he cared about our quality of education. A few months into the school year, Mr. Aylor approached me with a proposition to paint a mural of the Coliseum on his classroom wall. "Ever since I moved into this new room, I have hated this hideous orange wall! I need to cover it up with something. I know you're an exceptional painter and I think you would do an excellent job leading this class project. I have faith in you." True, I loved painting. But I had never painted a picture of such magnitude (ten feet long and six feet tall), much less directly (and permanently) on a wall! The task seemed daunting, but his words "I have faith in you" kept resonating in my mind, and so I agreed to take a risk and try. The risk became a success, and the success of the mural led to more mural painting opportunities, and more mural painting opportunities led to a mural painting business. Mr. Aylor helped me learn to take risks, to think BIG and outside the box, and, most importantly, to have faith in my own creative expression of an idea. Following his model, exceptional teaching requires not only pushing your students to learn, but also supporting their individual interests, values, and beliefs outside of your specific content area. If I were to walk back into his classroom today, I would have three words to say to him after giving him a big hug and thanking him for being such a supportive and inspirational teacher: Ego Amo Art.
-- Allison Aboud, American University