I immediately think of Donald Jones when I look back to my inspirations for becoming a teacher. I had the privilege of being enrolled in his American history class junior year of high school. While I had a liking for history, he is the only person to motivate me enough to choose senior history so that he would be my teacher again. I had visions of becoming a teacher before his class, but I never knew where or what I wanted to teach. He has driven me to become a history major as well as consider high school as my preferred work place.
Three years later, names and dates of historical figures have left my head, however, as he told us the first day of class, “you shouldn’t come out of this class with just a bunch of memorized facts, hopefully you’ll leave with life skills.” The most important skill he stressed was that we understood how talented we all were. He wanted to know us so that he could prove his point. On the same day he had us describe ourselves to the rest of the class. After at least two years of high school together, most of us had a pretty good idea of who each other were. Mr. Jones, with little prior knowledge of any of us, was able to help some of the more shy people share facts about themselves that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. Mr. Jones has gift of giving students confidence in not only their scholastic abilities, but their extracurricular achievements as well. His effect on students goes beyond the class room. He develops their minds to think critically in all aspects of life. He made us better people not just better at history.
-- Gerard Tetel, American University