Favorite offbeat teacher or professor?

In My Humble Opinion
21

When I saw the title to this I immediately thought of Mr. Booth my 5th-grade teacher in 1971-72. He was young, it was probably his first teaching job. He kind of reminded me of Mike Nesmith with a mustache. He wore cool clothes. I can picture him to this day wearing a purple plaid suit with bellbottom pants (with cuffs!) He would sit at his desk, feet up on the desk, and would comb his mustache with a little mustache comb. He kept a turntable and speakers in our classroom. On Fridays he let us bring in our records and we’d listen to them all day. He drove a brand new red mustang that all the boys were gaga about.

What a fun year that was. He was a good teacher too. I’ve often thought or wondered why other teachers couldn’t be fun and still teach. So many of them acted like they hated kids. If that’s the case, do something else. School doesn’t have to be miserable. And yes, I know, some kids can be truly awful to teach.

22

I went to an all-boys HS and all the teachers, with one exception were men. Until the second term of physics when the regular teacher was off for some reason and they replaced him with a woman. She was really certified for biology and was not competent to teach physics. But her husband did teach physics elsewhere and if there was something she didn’t understand, she would come back with the answer the next day.

But she was an attractive woman, probably in her mid-30s and had quite an effect on us boys. Then one day she came to class wearing a leopard-spotted skirt. Someone called her Sheba and for the rest of the term she was invariably referred to as Sheba. Eventually, she learned about this and took it all in good humor.

23

I had a 6th grade (IIRC) science teacher who was pretty much equal parts Mr. Kotter and Mr. Wizard. Mr. Murin was quite unorthodox, loaned out Atari 2600 cartridges, and was DM for afterschool D&D sessions in the school.

24

I had this fantastic college history professor who from what I could tell only had two passions in life. History and storytelling. The first lecture he didn’t even introduce himself or what the class entailed. He sat quietly in a corner till class started, stood up, walked in front of us, mad eye contact until the room was quiet, and then just launched into “THE YEAR WAS 1861!” and for the next hour unloaded all the persons, places, occurrences, and their significance like you were watching a one man play.
Nest class same thing. “THE MINUTEMAN PEERED DOWN THE MUZZLE OF HIS RIFLE!”

25

Paul Tanner wasn’t offbeat as much as he was illustrious:

I took a History of Jazz class from him at UCLA. He was very entertaining and funny; his first and last lectures of the term were as finely honed as a professional comedian’s standup routine.

26

I had a high school English lit teacher who had actually taught at college, and that was exactly how she did it: by lecturing. The blackboard was very rarely used; we were expected to take notes as she lectured. Of course, the Socratic method was used also, which scared the hell out of the kids in the back of the class who hoped that they would never be called upon. But while this was unorthodox for any high school English lit class (my English teachers previously had used the blackboard extensively), I found it to be excellent prep for university English and History studies.

I thought she was terrific, and I excelled in her class. But the student body was divided: you either loved her or hated her. And it tended to follow one of two lines: if you loved her, it was because she treated you and taught you like the college students you would become. And if you hated her, it was because she treated you and taught you like college students, when you were only high school kids.

27

That reminds me, we had an English teacher in high school much like that and a similar divide: you either loved her, or you hated her. I felt bad for her, because the students who hated her could be very, very cruel. She had sensory issues with smell and, knowing this, some kid brought in this really nasty smelling perfume – that took her out for the entire day :frowning:

Funny how as you get older you empathize with the teachers more than the students…

28

Slightly off topic, but one high school teacher I had (grade 12 physics) who was so highly regarded turned out to be the biggest a**hole teacher I had in high school. Referred to me as “the consummate underachiever”. He had a couple other students he’d single out for humiliation as well. A total pr*ck.

I think I’ve done alright in my life.

29

I think the maths teacher I had from age 12-14 was probably the favourite. She’d been a student at that school, went to teacher training college as soon as she’d left (and met her husband on the first day, being efficient, as she liked to point out). As soon as she graduated, she got her first job back at that same school, and retired when I was 14. It wasn’t a job; it was a calling.

As might be expected, she was a master of running the class- those who needed help got it, those who needed challenging got it, without it being obvious.

Her favourite punishment for students talking instead of paying attention was to get them to come up to the board and explain how what they were talking about related to maths- she claimed that it was always possible, and it was generally pretty funny watching the attempt (the ‘statistical analysis’ of relationship length in soap operas, diagrammed on the blackboard, was one that stood out)- but I don’t remember a single time that it didn’t end with the student on the spot laughing as well. She was also completely confident with admitting when she made a mistake.

She did have a weird side as well- for a start she’d always come in wearing her nearly 50-year-old school uniform when we had the annual non-uniform day. I also have a vivid memory of her leading a conga line of students around the classroom singing ‘Nellie the Elephant’, and I have absolutely no clue what triggered it, even though I was in the class and joined in…

I think every single student she taught in the year she retired chipped in for a leaving present.

30

My favorite teacher was my math professor in college but it required a different route. I was a math (and CS) student and my freshman year I had Jerry at 8 am for Math Anal I & II. I hated it. It probably had a lot to do with the scheduled time but Jerry was tough and joyless. We had quizzes every morning and there were times I thought he was unfair.

It was a small school and Jerry taught a number of upper class courses as well. At the end of my freshman year I planned out the rest of my 4 years and set up a schedule that avoided Jerry as much as possible. There was only one class I couldn’t avoid: Linear Algebra the first semester of my sophomore year. I went into the class with dread but happy to know it was my last class with Jerry.

But it was totally different. Jerry was fun and engaging, humorous, and totally into teaching the material. He was much more forgiving if he knew you were putting in the work. It ended up being my favorite class of my college career. (I’m sure it helped that the class was in the afternoon.)

I learned later that Jerry considered the freshman classes as a way to weed out students. His opinion was that if a student struggled with MA I & II that they weren’t going to make it; coddling them would only delay the inevitable. Being hard and getting them to drop out of math and change majors during their freshman year was doing them a service.

After Linear Algebra I reconfigured my schedule to take as many classes with Jerry as possible. My last year he made up a class for a couple of us seniors. It was almost like an Oxford-style class of mostly dialog and research.

He died a few years ago and I’m glad that I was able to tell him most of this before he went. He had a fair amount of influence on me.

31

I had a chemistry professor who was flat out the most insanely smart person I’ve encountered. Not only on his only subject but also on just brute memory. He asked where I was from- and then asked, “I was there 10 years ago on a drive through the area, which street?” I told him and he asked me how the was on the corner down the block. It was just weird insane memory tricks like that. The guy next to me was from New Orleans, “What street? Which cross street? Were you the yellow or green house?” And then would talk about the trees, birds, cars in the front yard.

He committed suicide 2 months later at the age of 49y 11months as “no mathematician or scientist did their best work after 50” and he hadn’t personally made the big find/event that he’d envisioned yet.

32

That’s… a bummer. RIP to an interesting person @Disheavel. I’m assuming he wasn’t married, didn’t have kids?

33

My favorite offbeat professor was one I never took a course from. I was a grad student, so we interacted more at a social level. He was extremely quiet, very clever, and had a truly wicked sense of humor. When he had been a graduate student in England, he and some fellow students put together a color and sound movie (16 mm. Videotape hadn’t yet made serious inroads) that was Monty Pythonesque in style. It was hilarious. They had mercifully kept the in-jokes to a minimum, so we, as people not attending his school, could still get the gags, many of which were specific to academia (but not all. I still think about the “Low-Tech Muppet Show” in which they recreated the opening to The Muppet Show, but using only bare hands – no puppets. after the intro, the cut to a hand colored completely green with a mug in front of it labeled “Kermit”, who is approached by another hand wearing a wig (standing in for Miss Piggy). They have wild Muppet sex.)
He also wrote wonderfully weird announcements. He had a four-foot-tall stack of plays and skits he’d written. In his apartment he had one of those kinetic sculptures that he’d built himself that took a big steel ball bearing (like a pinball ball) from the ground to a three foot height using elaborate mechanics. He hadn’t finished the return part yet. It was something like George Rhoads’ sculptures:

In addition, he published some very weird books, including the works of (supposedly) the World’s Worst Poet.

But in person he was incredibly reserved and quiet, although good for the occasional one-liner. I was with him at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and we were looking at Thomas Cole’s series The Voyage of Life. It’s a metaphoric journey through life in four paintings. We got to the third, Manhood, which depicts Our Hero in his boat, rushing through uncertain rapids and praying to Heaven for deliverance. He looked at this for a minute and said simply “Looks about right.”

Fascinating guy.

34

That is hilarious!

35

The radio station I’m streaming just now reminded me of my middle school art teacher. That district required half semesters of art, music, home ec, and shop for all three years; the art teacher – whose name I cannot recall – was way cool. He often had Top 40 music on during class. Music like “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)”.

36

Burnet M. Hobgood, 78, who built drama programs at two colleges before taking over the theater department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1975…
Mr. Hobgood was a dynamic instructor who taught and directed for more than 40 years.

https://faa.illinois.edu/burnet-hobgood

37

We had a history teacher in high school like this. He wasn’t elderly, but he was easy to nudge off topic. It was well known that distracting Dr. Johnson was a “secret.”

All the math teachers in my high school were a bit…, “off” but I had a fondness for our geometry teacher. I had no aptitude for the subject (I actually liked algebra), and he had me do a proof in front of the class once. I know he used a lot of assumptions in his examples, so I added an “assume” to my proof with no idea why I was doing it. And he went crazy saying how smart my proof was! He was also the faculty advisor for our Quiz Bowl team. Everybody tried to arrange alternate transportation when we had to travel to another school. He was a terrifying driver. His first and last name started with P, so, he was known as P squared. Another math teacher was H squared. One was Sterno. And don’t get me started on Mr. Dinkel.

38

My sixth-grade teacher also ran the used-books stall at the local farmers’ market. We read stories and poetry aloud every day. Our school was in a new development (Levittown, PA) and was totally overcrowded. Our classroom began in the gym and when we became itchy he would have us push the desks back so we could play dodge-ball. Had a hell of a good time, but was radically underprepared for JHS, where we had to change rooms when the periods changed. I had nightmares for years after about being lost between math and gym.

JHS wasn’t a total loss - first half of the year, boys had shop, girls had Home Economics, and in the second half, we switched! I learned to fry an egg, darn a sock, sew a button. I think this was a new arrangement, and the teachers were way onboard with the program. Much fun!

Moved back to Baltimore and landed in a Science class, where the teacher looked at me, oddly, and directed me to stay after class. Turned out he had been in WW2 with my uncle, and as an orphan, had taken all his leaves with my family. I was too young to appreciate it at the time, but I came to appreciate him that year, and still love science and critical thinking.

In HS I retreated into indifference. History teacher assigned an essay on the subject of our choice - I chose the Mountain Men of the early 19th century, which I knew a lot about, and I mean a lot! I got an F for my paper, because the teacher was sure I plagiarized it. I don’t remember if I appealed, because I was over the moon with the “compliment” to my writing (as I saw it).

Got into theater in my senior year - our director had a hard time staying on his highstool, he came to afterschool rehearsals with such a load on. I understand him so well now, after seeing how teachers have to struggle.

The standout teacher, of my entire school career, that final year was Miss Garner (this was long before Ms.) who separated me and another theater student in English class, referring to us as “front-row Barrymore” and “Back-row Barrymore”. We read stuff that affected me and stayed with me until today. Miss Garner made jokes and references that I was sure I was the only one to get (I modestly claim). She said, at the end of the year, that she expected I would be a late bloomer, and so I was - only a dandelion, but still.

Pardon the ramble, please, but until now I really didn’t realize how affected I was by the teachers I had in the establishment (school) I was miserable in - apparently it wasn’t all agony.

Dan

39

As mentioned earlier, I was in a district that required a half semester of Home Ec for grades 6/7/8. Home Ec for sixth graders got split up: half of the class learned to cook and the other half learned to sew. I ended up learning to sew because the cooking class filled up quick. One of the first things we did was use a pattern to sew an apron we could wear for the other two years.

The teacher’s rules of thumb didn’t quite work for my large hands.

40

The reason I became a teacher was “Papa” who taught High School Chemistry. Not AP, but he taught us college chem anyways (which I aced, because I’d learned it better in HS).

His best schtick was bringing students to the front and embarrassing them. We soon learned he was really “giving his friends a hard time”, and we started bringing props to class.

So when he called out “Christina Loueena, come on up and teach us about electron orbitals!”, she whipped out a couple of huge bagels and the local deli’s long “killer pickle”… and bingo! SPDF orbitals!

…

Thirty years later (and twenty zip codes away) I was chatting with another dad at our kids’ soccer game, and he asked me what I did, then why I became a teacher. I said it was because of “Papa”… and he laughed “Me, too! I had Papa, and I’m a High School Chemistry teacher!” (Even though this guy was ten years younger and Papa seemed ancient when I’d had him).