Dedicated students, distinguished colleagues and dear friends,

Happy Friday!

This week we welcomed our region’s K-12 teachers on campus, and we were delighted to host them. Last year’s Teacher of the Year elated us by delivering the keynote speech. The selected attendees were nominated by their local school communities for their excellence, on their way to the prestigious Teacher of the Year award. They are remarkable women and men who teach, mentor and enable students to project a sensible and exciting future for themselves.

Fortunately, we have all the unfortunate post-Covid data that highlights the importance of teaching and teachers. In a nutshell, and not surprisingly, “the longer schools were closed, the more students fell behind.” Participating in the events this past Wednesday was a reminder of my own university teaching years and caused vivid recollections of my own grade- and high-school teachers. So I submit that duty-minded K-12 teaching is one of the hardest jobs anyone can do. In fact, I encourage any sensible person to contemplate all the challenges that exemplary teachers face in schooling our young. Modest pay aside, teachers often face extracurricular challenges beyond their control: limited school district resources, broken or dysfunctional homes, underprepared pupils, and oversized parent expectations to just name a few.

Given my limited awareness of K-12 teaching challenges, I was particularly delighted to participate in the recognition celebration and welcome the teachers. All our participants were recognized for creating a sense of excitement about learning and engaging their students in creative ways to ensure that their attention is significantly, if not entirely, focused, despite their personal and familial challenges. You see, given my station in life as an academic administrator, I meet many great teachers as we celebrate their successes. I hear about our transformational teachers and read about legends whose devotion to student success has reverberated across generations. I am sure you have encountered and appreciated the potency with which your memorable teachers encouraged learning and pointed the way to something larger than ourselves, something more profound.

Like many, I have had my share of great teachers as I have highlighted in my past messages. I have written about my fifth-grade math teacher, Ms. Rasti, and her genius in “herding cats” and teaching them math! Like all great teachers, she had figured out that the most critical aspect of teaching is connecting. She started every session with a five-minute piece of a year-long mystery story, always stopping at a critical point in the plot, to ensure focused attention before she launched into the forms and forces of math. Her approach, along with her high bar of performance expectation, resulted in not only great learning but also in instilling the wisdom of acknowledging what we don’t know. In reflection, she had become the bridge between the known and the unknown, success and struggle, ambiguity and reality. 

As I have said before, and is worth repeating on this occasion, I have no idea if my fifth-grade math teacher, Ms. Rasti, the petite beautiful woman who was a giant figure in my life, is still alive. But I would love nothing more than to tell her in person that “you won’t remember me, but I want you to know how important you have been in my life.” I can only imagine that my words would be mixed with tears and would be uttered as ineloquently as they are simple. On reflection, however, as a teacher myself, those words might be all that Ms. Rasti would want to hear.

Finally, to all our guest teachers who visited us this past week, all our own teachers to be and all Ms. Rastis of the world, I say thank you for your important service, your guidance and for pointing the way. We were delighted to recognize your excellence, to celebrate your achievements, and to send our good wishes for your continued success.

Warmly,

-Mo.

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Mohammad Dehghani, PhD
Chancellor
mo@mst.edu | 573-341-4116

206 Parker Hall, 300 West 13th Street, Rolla, MO 65409-0910
chancellor.mst.edu