Getting to know Mr. Wilson

When walking into Mr. Wilson’s ninth grade literacy classroom I felt the sense of enthusiasm; even without students in the desk. When asking him about his life and childhood, he revealed things from his lifetime that I would’ve never thought about. Born in Warrington, England, Mr. Wilson described himself as, “A bad behaving child.” With little laughs following. I found it very interesting, for it seems like he would be the student who always set the curve and never missed an episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers after he finished his homework. Surprisingly, when I asked him what he was interested in as a child, he responded while chuckling, “Unsupervised rampaging,” so I guess I was wrong on my first impression (oops!). He also said that even though he was able to maintain decent grades, he very rarely went to class. Now, from a student’s perspective, I found it intriguing that a teacher was a ‘bad kid’, and that brought many questions to my mind about how he got to where he is now.

“Why did you want to become a teacher?” I asked.

He explained how he had developed all of these bad habits leading up the eleventh grade, and that was when he had a teacher that, “Changed his path.” Mr. Cummins was his Social Studies teacher, and though he may have done a fantastic job teaching Mr. Wilson about geography or whatever it was, but he changed his life, and inspired Mr. Wilson to change the lives of other students, just as he did for him. So after he graduated high school as a different person, he attended Cleveland State University so he could become a teacher. He chose to teach ninth grade comparative literature because statistically at this age, it is most crucial for teenagers to have good and proficient reading and writing skills.

Lastly, Mr. Wilson has a goal he wishes to accomplish as a teacher. He wants to impact more individual learners. He wants to make sure that he helps his students that really need it the most. We have no doubts that he will accomplish his goal. He may have been a different person in his youth, but today we see him as a successful, positive teacher that all students look forward to having every day.