Mine was my algebra teacher in high school — Mr. Ureno.
Some of us used to joke and call him “Mr. Ure-anus.”
He knew. He didn’t care.
Almost every class something strange would happen.
A student wouldn’t know the answer to a problem and Mr. Ureño would suddenly walk into the hallway and start screaming and cursing at the top of his lungs.
Then he’d come back into the classroom, massaging his temples with a little smirk on his face.
“Alright… let’s try this again.”
And he’d ask the question one more time.
This happened almost every day.
He meant well though. He was actually a great teacher.
He had graduated from Cathedral High School, went to Stanford, and later came back to teach at the same school. At the time he was living with his mom and taking care of her.
He was Mexican-American, with curly white hair and a peppered beard.
I started going to his after-school hours because I was failing his class. I hated math and I was terrible at it.
One day he looked at me and said:
“Why the fuck don’t you do your homework?”
Then he pointed at the paper in front of me.
“You’re doing the work right now. Why the fuck don’t you do this at home?”
He had that smirk on his face the whole time.
Then he said something that stayed with me:
“I don’t know what the hell is going to happen to you, man.”
I think I got a D in his class.
But he stayed in my head all these years.
Because he was right.
I could do the work.
I just didn’t try.
It took me a long time to understand that lesson.
Life moves slower for some people.
But eventually… I understood what he meant.
Reader question
Did you ever have a teacher whose words stayed with you long after school ended?
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I write daily reflections about life, creativity, and the strange teachers that shape us.
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