A teacher ’s calling never ends
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
– Will Durrant, historian
For better or worse, all of my high school English teachers were memorable. Each held a precise but non-overlapping image of the perfectly crafted essay; therefore, every September I found myself adopting a brand new writing style. A paper that would have garnered an “A” at the end of one school year routinely received a “C-minus” at the beginning of the next. For the next few months, I would master the new approach only to have it discarded and replaced again the following year. It was frustrating, but eventually, I discovered that my teachers were less cranky when I turned in work that was grammatically accurate, unambiguous, and tightly crafted. That seemed to please each one of them.
As I labored over my editing, I wondered if my teachers were just as intense and unforgiving in their private lives. Did they keep a red pencil handy whenever they read a newspaper or magazine? Did they feel the urge to pick up the telephone whenever a radio announcer split an infinitive or a news anchor ended a sentence with a preposition? I suspected that they were always on-duty even though I could not be certain.
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Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/bruce-campbell" rel="tag" > Bruce Campbell, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Hospital-Based Medicine Palliative Care Source Type: blogs
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