Favourite Teacher (schrijven Engels)

Writing exercise: the teacher who influenced me the most…

I’m going to write about the teacher I admire the most. It was a tough choice because there were a lot of important people in my live who tutored me in the Heilig Graf Instituut. There is Roger Panis with his famous quote ‘well!’, Guy Boelen who has taught me everything I needed to know about Pythagoras and Luc Lochtman taught me to master Horner and parabolas.

Not only math teachers did influence my life… Because I’m a sports fan, I always look forward doing sport twice a week. That’s why my biggest example is the smallest of them all: Vital ‘Soevie’ Soevereins. He always made us running around while he had problems standing on his feet due to gravity. In my opinion, that’s worth mentioning as well… But you can’t underestimate the power of Marcelin Steegen. He’s THE example of how you should keep your body in shape even though he’s getting in his early fifties…

But the hardest choice I had to make was the choice between Staes Senior and Jean Hubrechts. They have both taught me the values of life with their texts of ancient authors like Ovidius, Tacitus, Cicero and of course the great Caesar.

But the thing I will always remember them for is the trip to Trier! For the first time that year, we saw them like they really are: not beasts, just two happy old people… They guided us through the ancient city and they surprised us with their interesting trivia about the lives of the people that lived thousands of years ago. They also showed us the Porta Nigra and they surprised me the most in the swimming pool when they were checking the ladies who were jumping of the springboard, wearing nothing but their trunks… I’m not quite sure which one made the biggest impression on my underdeveloped brain…

I had to pick one of them, so my favourite teaching hero is… Jean Hubrechts! In my first year in the HGI I really hated him but at the end of the year he told me I had to hold on because I had it in me to complete the six years of Latin fun. Now, he’s my teacher of the old language again, and almost every week he tells me I don’t use my possibilities to the maximum. I have to have more confidence and study more regularly and I can make it through this last year. These wise words have helped me several times, when I did not have the eager to study. I’ll be grateful for those little words of support he gave me.