I’m in a rather thoughtful mood today.  I noticed a long time ago that I wasn’t updating, but I just couldn’t think of anything to write about.  I still don’t really have anything to write about but this is what’s on my mind.

When I was in 9th grade, I had a teacher named Mr. Sinnaeve (pronounced Sin-a-vee).  He taught English.  It wasn’t until long after high school was over that I realized just how amazing of a teacher he was.  See, Mr. Sinnaeve used to have us freewrite for 10 minutes at the beginning of every class.  Freewriting is an exercise where you grab a pen and a few sheets of paper and just start writing and don’t stop.  Whatever comes out, comes out.  If you ever stop writing, even for a second, you’re doing it wrong.  Needless to say, the end product of this exercise rarely makes any sense whatsoever, but that’s the point.  It’s a valuable tool for finding ideas you didn’t know you had, or just to get something off your chest, or to teach you that it’s okay to write, even if you’re not sure yet why you’re writing.  It was something that I really enjoyed at the time, and really took to heart.  It made me a better writer, doing this for just 10 minutes every day.  At the end of the 10 minutes, we would turn in our freewriting paper, and he would grade it.  The only things he would mark people down for would be if there were eraser marks, or if the paper made too much sense.

Mr. Sinnaeve had a totally different approach to teaching than any other teacher we had encountered in our public school careers.  If someone asked a stupid question, he gave a stupid answer.  “What do you mean by ‘just write whatever is on our mind,’ I don’t get it,” would be answered by something like, “There are parrots in the ceiling.”  And then he would move on.  I was absolutely delighted by Mr. Sinnaeve.

One day, we came in to class and the teacher there was not Mr. Sinnaeve.  I don’t remember who it was, because they were painfully uninteresting and not at all memorable.  We learned later that Mr. Sinnaeve had been fired, because he ruined some ditzy cheerleader’s 4.0 because she couldn’t grasp the concept of freewriting, and her mom threw a bitchfit.  Clearly this girl was excellent and retaining facts and regurgitating them, but if you can’t grasp the idea of just simply writing to write, you shouldn’t have a 4.0 in the first place, let alone get the teacher fired.

I was angry at the time, but looking back, even then I didn’t fully appreciate what Mr. Sinnaeve was doing for us.  By changing the way I looked at writing and learning, he literally changed my life.  I’ve made efforts to find Mr. Sinnaeve recently, because I want to thank him for being the teacher that he was, and I want to acknowledge the injustice of what happened to him.  I want to tell him that I still freewrite every time I need to get something off my chest or come up with a new idea, and that he was the best teacher I ever had.  Unfortunately I can’t seem to find any information about where he is or what he might be doing now.

If anyone can find a Theodore/Ted Sinnaeve that used to work at Holt Junior High, let me know.