Mr. Herberich

We had a substitute teacher who was really a character. His name was Mr. Herberich. He said it like it was. He told us how our teacher had a great lesson planned for us, which he also said would be wasted on our teenage minds. He talked about how Spanish is not an accepted language for a science major, and how he hated rubrics. It all seemed pretty trivial. He was a funny guy, who went against the typical teacher mold. He was entertaining, so we listened. Then he gave us a piece of advice gold. He launched into a story about his daughter who was applying to a prestigious college. She was smart, smart enough to get an interview with a drafting officer who would decide if she got in or not. She had lunch with the woman, a big English buff. It just so happened that his daughter had taken a great interest to a specific English topic, one that the woman happened to be in love with. The drafting officer was so surprised that his daughter could carry on a highly intelligent conversation about English for so long that on that alone, she got in. And so, concluded Mr. Herberich, always pay attention. You never know what in the future might help you out, so make sure you know it all. I thought that was really interesting, and it really did motivate me to pay attention more, to know as much as I could. After all, there was no way that his daughter could have known in high school that her interest in English would have helped her get into college 2 years later. It inspired me not to take knowledge for granted and to realize that anyone, anywhere can teach me something. Sometimes I feel we take knowledge for granted. We even complain about it. And yet without it we'd be completely lost in the dark. I also feel sometimes people aren't open minded enough, thinking that they are older, wiser, or superior, and therefore don't stand to gain anything from those who are 'inferior' to them. It's absolutely true that anyone can learn something from anything. Just got to have an open mind.

HAOP
(Have an Open Mind)
Eric