To Mr. Beebus (Brandes)
Mr. Brandes was my AP Literature and Composition teacher my senior year of high school. I looked forward to his class every day. About ten percent of the class was learning how to write essays and the other ninety percent was arguing about weird topics like paper towels. We read three books in his class, "Frankenstein", "Heart of Darkness", and "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". All of which made me cry and laugh. We wrote four papers, our last being on World War I poetry. I chose two poems by Wilfred Owen, "Anthem for Doomed Youth" and "Dulce et Decorum Est." Both poems give you detailed descriptions of first-hand experiences of war and describe how pointless your life is a soldier and how no one cares that you die.
After I read both of these poems I immediately was against the war and all things violence. Especially at the time we were reading the war poems the chemical warfare in Syria got particularly bad and as a class, we mourned together. It was beautiful and I appreciate him for not letting us become desensitized to families suffering overseas.
Brandes also helped me created stronger arguments with the simple advice of, "If you use 'but' in your argument, it immediately becomes weak and illogical." As a class, whenever challenged we had to keep in mind that if we made a point about something, like "abortion is bad" we cannot say "but the death penalty should be legal" because that is a logical fallacy. You cannot say murder is bad while allowing it. Mr. Brandes would let me share my papers with him in advance because he knew how ambitious I was with my schoolwork and wanted to always excel. I appreciate him letting me brainstorm with him about topics to write about or subtleties in books that I should be able to pick up on. I specifically remember sitting with him and we found articles to help me prove my hypothesis that everytime the nursery rhyme, "Oranges and Lemons", was mentioned in the book "1984" the main character was closer to being captured.
He let me write in books. He let all his students make notes, write, highlight anything we desired in the books we read in class.
Mr. Brandes also made sure to let us know it wasn't about how we scored on the AP test and that it was about how much we learned in the class. It was just a lame test to him and it had so many outside factors on how your test could be scored that it didn't matter. For this, I appreciate that. My anxiety was lessened by his sensitivity.
During prom season Mr. Brandes made sure to mention that it's not worth it to drink and drive and gave a personal story about one of his friends going to prison for ten years because he drank and drove and killed a woman in a car accident. Then talking about unsafe sex and to only do it when you are absolutely sure. Something that I will always remember and take into consideration is when Brandes said, "Whatever you do in your life you have to be okay with telling someone later in your life." It's a good philosophy in living your life, don't do something if you aren't okay with telling someone about what you did.
The highlight of the point I want to make about him is how his presence in my life was beneficial. He is how I wished every teacher would be. Open and honest. Caring and dependable. I thank him for letting me take up a majority of his planning time to let me talk to him about the day's lesson or just useless nonsense. He was like a father figure to me and also a friend. He made sure to make a personal connection with his students and love us all unconditionally. He's inspired me to be softer and caring of others. To understand that not everyone has had the same advantages in life that I've had and to consider outside factors before making a final decision.
