Awesome Teachers

[Pike]

So we touched on this a bit in that history thread floating around, but let's talk about it in more depth. A great teacher can make or break a class for many people. Who are some memorable ones you've had? As a rule almost all of my history teachers have been amazing, which possibly instilled in me my love of the subject. I also had a fantastic math teacher in 11th grade who just made Algebra 2 seem so easy and painless. She was so good at teaching the concepts and getting students to understand them. I recall getting a 104% on the final test in that class-- aced every question plus the two bonus questions. I guarantee I wouldn't have done that well with any other teacher.

Going back a bit, I also had a wonderful 3rd grade teacher who was a bit nutty by the school board's standards but we loved her. She was actually a stage actress (like, that was her other job), and she was always encouraging us to be super creative and think outside of the box. She introduced us to poetry and musicals, and would spend much, much longer than she probably should have reading us "James and the Giant Peach" after lunch and doing all the voices.

Talk about your great teachers!

[Zeldy]

My sociology teacher from college was really really awesome. We used to have massive debates for a lesson but he always managed to keep them in control and on topic, and then we'd re-cap and write everything down at the end. For his birthday we proper spoilt him with gifts, got him his favourite football team top and had 'Big Dave' on the back of it with a number 4 as that was our column. He was really great, even now that I'm at University I have the ability to whack him a message and he'll give me important sociologists to focus on, I keep attempting to attract him to come work here but he's head of department at another college. I NEED BIG DAVE.

[Shorty]

My fourth grade teacher was the first memorable one for me. He was so funny, but I was the only one who seemed to catch his jokes in class, so I always always laughing and everyone else just always seemed bored and lost. I was reading Ender's Game for the first time and he helped explain some of the plot to me that I was mixed up about (because I was ten) and encouraged me to enter my first spelling bee and helped critique me on stories and entered a piece of my work into a writer's conference. I felt like he was the first teacher who ever noticed and appreciated the work that I did and he really helped me grow more to love reading than I did already.

My sixth grade teacher was an amazing, incredibly strong woman. She was supposedly the strictest teacher in school and nobody wanted to willfully be placed in her class but once we were all there, our class couldn't have been better. She really shapened us up for a "real world" in junior high and taught us how to behave like human beings because she treated us like human beings, not like children. I also don't think I've ever read as many books with a class as I did with her - we were always reading something and she had us memorize poetry and record journal entries. Just an overall really great teacher who I appreciated and I wish I would have had more like her - maybe I would have been motivated to go to school more than I did later on.

[Sephex]

I remember my Plants and Animals teacher being very relaxed and worked with us in a non linear style. I don't recall having too much homework from that class too. The classroom was so relaxed that I felt it was a break in my day when I was in there.

[Clo]

I'm a great teacher.

[Shlup]

I was a great teacher.

[Pike]

Everyone tells me I'm a great teacher. And supposedly a great public speaker as well. Yeah I dunno.

[Tigmafuzz]

My friend's kids 3, and due to my influence over the last year, they not only began speaking, but speaking properly. As in, they likely have better knowledge of English grammar than most Americans. They're both musically intelligent (I can't think of a better phrase, but if you've studied any music theory, you probably get what I mean) and love learning piano. They also have their multiplication tables memorized up to 20, and understand fractions better than their motherwho is a complete smurfing idiot. Just the other day, the two of them worked together on an essay about why ethics are important in a modern society. Did I mention they're not even 3?

I value all people as a sum of their knowledge, experience, wisdom, morals, and skills, with a slight bias to account for personality, level of intelligence, innate talent, personal views, and how well they work towards their own goals. And to be honest, I view these kids as more valuable than at least half of the people I've met in my entire life. That has nothing to do with my love for them. They're just wonderful people. I highly doubt they would be anywhere near this book-smart, cultured, philosophically insightful, or well-behaved without my influence.

So yeah. I consider myself a pretty good teacher.

[Faris]

My best friend is an awesome teacher. She will make puns, show pictures (ones that I send her and some of the school related ones), prance in the halls, and gives out prizes when her students do all the homework in a unit. I envy her students.

[Citizen Bleys]

Eiikichi Onizuka is a Great Teacher.

[krissy]

^{the street}

[Madame Adequate]

Two immediately come to mind.

Mrs. McCann was my maths teacher in years 7-9 and like Pike's math teacher in the OP, she was amazingly gifted at explaining things. She kept classes interesting and challenging but without being too much, and thanks to her I grew from being good at maths to amazing at it.

Mrs. Hunt was my English teacher from like Year 10 until I finished Sixth Form and is my favorite teacher ever. Oh she was so wonderful. It's hard to describe just what it was that was so great about her but she just had this way that made everything intuitive and easy to understand and we swooned together over how gorgeous Marlon Brando was as a young man.

[Quindiana Jones]

Mr. Hector, Mr. Milroy, and my philosophy teachers in college all had a considerable impact on my life, and the person I am today. So, any complaints should be directed at them.

[Jiro]

I had quite a few good teachers. I had quite a few okay teachers and a few who were passable and a few more who weren't but overall I'm pretty satisfied with the level of assistance I was given. You know you were doing alright when years later you still get high fives when you see 'em.