Editor,

I taught at South Whidbey High School for 18 years, 14 of them as English department chair. I retired 12 years ago, but continue to substitute teach, primarily in the English and social studies departments. Prior to coming to South Whidbey, I taught in four states and six different schools for a total of 40 years in the classroom.

I also taught at both the universities of Nebraska and Washington, teaching teachers how to teach students to think and express their thinking through writing. I know good teaching … I know a good teacher when I see one.

Mark Eager is one of the best teachers I have encountered in my 40-plus year career, not only on the secondary level, but also the college level. I would go one step further and rate him as one of the five best teachers out of the roughly 1,000 I have known and worked with in my teaching career. I have substitute-taught his classes as well as guest-taught in areas of my expertise, usually Vietnam and that time period. His expectations of me are high while teaching his class.

Teaching is not just a job to Mr. Eager, it is a passion.

Students, faculty and building administrators respect him. His knowledge is expansive and he is always well prepared. His lectures are well researched, thought provoking, discussions lively, and his expectations are high. Mr. Eager has few, if any, discipline problems. What more could a building administrator ask for?

We are living in an era of “slippery-slope-truth” and “alternative facts,” especially in the area of politics and history. However, truth is truth, fact is fact. Believing something does not make it true.

Fact; This era of fake news and “alternative facts” (beliefs), makes it difficult for teachers, especially those who teach history.

So what is the future of teaching? Are our teachers doomed to teach both sides of something like the anomaly of Q-Anon? How about flat earth? Have students make up their own mind? Pretend there isn’t a “provable” truth here —science would love that. Obstruction of the constitutional process of certifying a free and fair election is OK? Desecrating and destroying the Capitol is OK? Killing Capitol police in the process of performing their sworn duty, is OK? Hunting down the vice president to hang him because he wouldn’t falsify the election is OK? Stealing classified documents from senators’ desks is OK? Smearing feces and urinating on the wall of Congress is OK?

Millions of dollars of damage is OK?

If ever there was a teacher worth defending, it is Mark Eager. Defend Mark, defend truth.

Remember, truth is truth. Alternative beliefs are not truths, they are beliefs; there is no such thing as alternative truth.

Stephen Durbin

Coupeville