My American History teacher in High School, Umberto LaPaglia, was a pretty tough teacher. Faced with ~150 teenagers every year who knew it all (but couldn't tell the difference between Armenia and Afganistan if their lifes depended on it), he developed a series of tricks to maintain order in his classroom and encourage his students to actually learn something.
One of his favorites was to keep a yardstick close by at all times. Whenever the class was dozing off, he'd thwack the desk and make a very loud noise. But that was mostly for show (and to raise the dead). What I remember most from his class was his gentle encouragement to do something useful with our lives.
Go do something meaningful with your life. Learn how to speak Uzbek.
It was as if he was telling us that the world didn't need another dozen heavy metal guitar players, and that there was more to life than fixing cars or cosmetology school. Either that, or Mr. LaPaglia just liked the sound of the word "Uzbek". I guess I'll never know. Last I heard, he started touring the world, visiting all of the interesting places he taught about for many years, losing a little more of his diminishing grey hair in the process.
One thing is for sure. If he were still teaching today, his students would know where to find Uzbekistan on the map. And they might know a little more than the name of it's national language.
