I’ve had several, but I’ll give props to my first grade teacher, Miss Wright. She was as compassionate and as sweet as they come, and for a shy sensitive wallflower like me a Godsend. I was madly in love with her too, and even her getting married halfway though the year didn’t stop my ardor. She also drilled the phonics rules into my head relentlessly, so much so that I can still remember several lessons now and apply them to my students. When I work with my little ones I try to channel her optimism and energy and compassion. Here’s to you Miss Wright!
Can I talk about my younger son’s best teacher? I wished both my sons could have been in her class.
She taught in such a way that wasn’t intimidating. It impressed me that she always treated her students with respect, instead of instilling fear. (And rarely had a disilipline [sorry, I’m spelling so bad right now I can’t even find the word in the dictionary] problem.)
What may have been more important to the students was that she had everything planned to cause them to get up out of their seats occasionally. The workbooks for one subject were kept on one side of the room, and the kids lined up to go get theirs. Something else was kept on the other side, or at the back, because she told me she felt it was impossible to expect the class to sit in place for hours at a time. She wasn’t a new teacher; she’d been there for years, just doing things the way she felt best.
It was the only year my son was on the honor roll. I’m so glad she taught 5th grade, because it gave him a great send-off for middle school.
My 12th grade econ teacher, Mr. G. It wasn’t that he was a great teacher (he was), or that he inspired me to go into economics (he didn’t), but he was probably one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. In high school, I wasn’t popular, cool, athletic, charming, outgoing or even especially smart-- in fact h.s. was probably the hardest four years of my life for a number of reasons-- but he had a way of making me feel like I mattered. He would say hi to me in the hallway, look me in the eye, smile, joke with me, encourage me, etc.
He died three weeks ago at the horribly young age of 49. I made it a point to make it to his funeral (which was actually at my church), and the place was packed to the gills with students, former students, neighbors, co-workers, former co-workers, friends and family. It was probably the most emotionally draining two hours I’ve had in 10 years. Every single former student that spoke talked about how he made them feel important, and that will be his lasting legacy: He had an incredible way of relating with teenagers-- the brains, the rejects, the drug addicts, the jocks, the assholes, the lonely, the cocky, the dramatic, the ditzy, the slow ones and everyone else. He was one in a billion.
My first semester in Jr. High school (the first place we went from class to class instead of staying with the same teacher all day). I was in Mr. Richard B. Betteridge’s B-7 math class. Prior to that I was ok in arithmetic but not particularly enthused. But just that summer before, I began to get all into it. (Finding a copy of George Gamow’s “One Two Three… Infinity” book had a lot to do with that.)
Mr. Betteridge was a fabulous math teacher, for me at least. He really turned me on to it. Most other students, who weren’t into math, more-or-less thought his stuff was silly. He also looked exactly like Colonel Sanders, white hair and little beard and all.
Mr Howlett. Taught me history between the ages of 13 and 15.
Unlike other teachers he spotted that the reason I sometimes goofed around in class was because I found the work too easy and finished within minutes of having it assigned and was bored. He gave me extracurricular assignments that were fascinating (he himself was a fascinating dude, having lived all over the world with the British diplomatic service - and he was also a proper English gentleman, a member of the MCC, and tremendously old-school) and were based around things that interested him.
It was a positive feedback loop: because he was enthusiastic, he got me enthused, and that further enthused him. When I aced all the stuff he assigned me, as well as the stuff for class, he added out-of-hours duty as editor of the school magazine, which I loved.
I got 100% in the final history test, the highest mark ever awarded. My next History teacher hated me. He gave me an F for my mock ‘O’ level exam, and threw me out of class. I ended up having to pay out of my own pocket to take the public exams, for which I got a B. I wished, for Mr Howlett’s sake, that it had been an A, but I was horribly disillusioned by then.
My 11th and 12th grade math teacher. I still keep in contact with her after almost 40 years.
My second high school science teacher. He handed out some information sheets at the start of the semester, which had funny but true bits of information. For instance “Fudge factor - the number which, when added, subtracted, multiplied, or divided by, you get the results that you SHOULD have gotten from the experiment” and “Hot glass looks EXACTLY the same as cold glass”. My daughter and I sometimes recite that last one to each other when we grab a potholder to get something out of the oven. We also recite it to my husband/her father, when he DOESN’T grab a potholder and then is surprised that his hands are not made of asbestos.
He told his students that, contrary to the usual requirements of the time, he would not be collecting our science notebooks and grading them. In fact, although he didn’t require the notebooks, if we didn’t want to keep one, we didn’t have to. His tests were open book. All of them. We didn’t have to memorize the periodic table. He said that if we ever got any science related job out in the real world, that we would be able to look things up at any time. Instead, he wanted to teach us how to look things up quickly and efficiently, and how to think things through. In other words, he tried to prepare us for life.
We rarely had lab partners. When we did, he knew which partner was doing the work and which one was slacking…and the slacker got just about as much credit as s/he deserved. This led to a few slackers griping to him that their partners got an A, while they received a D or F, and Mr. Tave would always tell them that one person can’t carry a team, and he could tell when just one partner had put forth some effort while the other partner was content to coast along.
Mr. Tave loved science fiction as well as science, and was willing to talk to me about it. I had read a lot of the good old stuff, like some of the Lensman novels, and other SF classics. This impressed him, first that I was a girl who read SF, and second that I was willing to read the older stuff. He gave me a lot of great recommendations, and I was his office assistant for one semester, which meant that we chatted all during that hour while I was doing things like collating papers and such.
Mrs. Hummel my 8th grade teacher. she believed is her students and that they should be learning and she gave us the tools to learn. That would have been the 1960-1961 schoolyear and I still remember with fondness.
The other was Mr Thorn. My Advanced math teacher in High School. It would be a long post to explain all of why. Lets say he just gave of himself to his classes.
Mr. Abbamont taught Social Studies, Grammar (which was separate from English, for some reason), Remedial Handwriting, and a “mini-course” on humor. (This was in junior high school.) More importantly, he taught his students to get it right. (“Right” means it was accurate, neat, and formatted his way.) If what we did wasn’t right, we didn’t just get a bad grade and move on, we had to redo it.
I’ve had other great teachers, but because of him, I derived much more benefit from what they had to offer.
Mrs. Fisher 8th grade English. Very strict but truly kind. At the end of the school year she gave me blank book with a lovely note I have to this day. It says: “Dear LB, Let me help you put some of those beautiful, sensitive thoughts into your first collection. I’ve read enjoyed reading them. Good luck! – A. Fisher” I haven’t written any poetry in a long time. But when my first non-fiction book comes out this summer her name will be in the thank you notes.
My German teacher between age 13 and 16. He was a very nondescript person who didn’t even have a nickname among the pupils, but you could sense that he just loved languages (and it rubbed off on me) and was very motivational.
Mr. D, grade 9/10 English and Law.
Dude treated us like university students. He had a way of getting you to respect him so that even 14 year olds acted better around him. He was the first teacher that really made me understand essays and be prepared for them. He never did worksheets or other tactics that other English teachers used, it was just essays like real adults do! I felt like he treated us like a prof treats students, and not like a teacher with a herd of wild children.
My 8th grade math teacher, Mr. D.
I was always very good at math. Actually “very good” is an understatement. I was so good that I rarely needed to work things out on paper. Whenever a teacher would go around the room, asking each kid to answer a given question, I’d always be picked last, because I always knew the answer. Because of this, I was always perceived as “teacher’s pet” in math class.
So I was Mr. D.'s teacher’s pet. Not only that, but at that age I was dealing with issues concerning my sexual preference, in addition to raging hormones. So I had this HUGE crush on Mr. D., and probably had a continuous erection in his class.
And today, more than 50 years later, I still swoon when thinking of 8th grade math. Oh, does that make Mr. D. my “best teacher”? I don’t know, but he sure was my favorite.
For being in a mediocre district, I had a few *truly *great high school teachers. All of our AP teachers were astonishingly good.
First was Mr. W, my AP history teacher (which was the first AP class we were eligible to take, as first-semester juniors). He was enthusiastic and fun, and made everybody want to sign up for more AP classes because of his awesomeness. He had an ongoing rivalry with the Spanish teacher across the hall, Mrs. S (I had her for Spanish, too). He would use fake-Spanish words like “El Bonuso” for a bonus test question, just silly shit like that. A really good guy. He had some kind words for me after my grandpa died and I broke down crying before class the next day, and I’ll never forget that. It was just obvious he cared about all of his students. In retrospect, I’m not sure that I learned much in that class. I don’t think anyone did better than a 3 on the AP exam (really none of us were prepared for the vigorousness of the AP curriculum, and because my school did “Block-4” scheduling we only had the course for half the academic year). But still, I’m glad I had him.
Second was Mrs. C, my AP English teacher. She was very prickly and kind of off-putting to people who didn’t know her well, and looked like a salty sea dog–she’d been through a lot in her life, she was Polish and born in Germany just before WWII. She spoke three languages, had family who died in the Holocaust, and is probably the smartest person I’ve ever met. She had a tendency to ridicule idiots (not unintelligent people, but class clowns and popular kids who were used to preferential treatment based on their sense of humor or looks). She had a reputation as a tough but fair teacher, and was well known for not taking shit from anybody. I’m pretty sure the principal and superintendent were scared of her. We got a few 4s on the English exam. I remember well the times she would bust people’s balls in the hallway for dress code violations–she actually got this one clown suspended for mouthing off to her in passing, it was a thing of glory. He always bitched about her after that. Because he was obnoxious but attractive and charismatic, most teachers would let him get away with murder (in retrospect, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a proto-sociopath). He was angry when she turned out to be uncharmable, and had the clout to get him suspended.
Also Mr. B, the physics/AP Calc teacher. He would often use Spiderman and Superman in his example problems. He was really young (late 20s) and smart as hell, but didn’t take himself too seriously. He was really good at what he did, and especially good at making it relevant to us students. There were a couple 5s and several 4s on the AP Calc test–he knew his shit and how to teach it, so we did too. We also had a lot of class-wide discussions on random stuff during homework time, like relativity (I remember his explanation for why an object would get larger as it approached the speed of light, for example). Just a very smart, knowledgeable, cool guy. There were never any discipline problems in his classes, although he wasn’t loud or possessed with an overwhelming personality. He was a relatively quiet guy (he was very reserved outside the classroom) and spoke quietly. So, if anyone was talking or messing around, you wouldn’t be able to hear him. He would just keep talking and other students would tell the person messing around to shut up because we couldn’t hear. A self-regulating classroom! Fun times
Sounds like a lot of these folks were A/P teachers. Go fig.
Mine was Miss Santana. After years of being told I was “slow”, “lazy”, etc., they finally tested everybody and threw a bunch of us into the A/P classes. She was supposed to teach history, but I don’t think I learned a lot of history in that class. What she taught *me *was critical thinking. How to look at problem solving the way I could figure it out rather than just following the cookie cutter instructions. It really helped me a lot in the future. She also “required” us to keep journals, and would take time to one-on-one review things with each of us. This meant a lot to me, and she started me on the path that got me interested in creative writing, which really paid off in college. She introduced me to Vonnegut, Kafka and other subversive types. Maybe a little deep for an eighth grader, but my parents didn’t really follow my school work much. As long as I started bringing home the grades they didn’t mind.
She let us get away with a lot of pranks and stunts, because the A/P thing was a pilot program with our school district, and most us thought that being in the “new” classes gave us some lee way. All in all I think most of us got a real benefit out of it. We used to make fun of her a lot, but we all were quite proud of her when (and sad because) she announced that she would be quitting teaching because she was getting married.
She was a great teacher. Oh, and she also helped us get the school’s permission to bury a time capsule near the flagpole. I wasn’t there when they were to have uncovered it. But time waits for no one. A big thanks to her for all that.
So it goes.
My Sergeant in JROTC in High School. I never planned on joining the military, but I stuck it out through all four levels because of him.
Going in I was a punk. I refused to do my school work, I was just your average rebellious teenager, with an extra side of rebellion. He helped me to see that I wasn’t unique, that my intellect was what set me apart and I needed to use it. The wisdom (and one of the best senses of humor I’ve ever come across) that came from him changed my life. One day he said to me: “Remember, what you do today affects how you live tomorrow… and the rest of your life for that matter”. My life started looking up once I came to grasp the brevity of his words. And it was all uphill from there.
I went into my sophomore year of high school with a 2.3 GPA, but graduated with honors. I owe it to him. He taught me more than anyone else during my high school years, but it wasn’t stuff you’d find in any curriculum. He taught me how to cope with missing my mother and forgiving her for being absent. He taught me how to be myself and hold my own, to be content with myself since I didn’t have many friends.
It sounds cliche, but it’s true. I don’t think I ever told him that, but he deserves to know. And on top of all of that, he could make me laugh when no one else could. Man, I wish more teachers were like him.
Runner up goes to my college Biological Anthropology teacher. Though we were only graded on four tests for the entire semester, that man made me think. Not just about anthropology, but about everything. Not many professors can keep my attention, much less keep me thinking about what they said long after class is over.
- 7th Grade, Mrs. Maurer. Not perfect, but she was a lot of fun in class, and I can trace my interest in history and politics to her. She really drove home the point that history isn’t about a dull recitation of names and dates – it’s a story, about people, and it’s fascinating.
Also she was a pretty attractive lady in her mid-30s, and she probably was the object of more private-time fantasies than any other individual. (For me, that is, not, like, America.)
2) Professor Charles Tarlton, Poli Sci. Just political theory, all abstraction. If a student tried to ask about the implications of Rousseau’s theory on X for Bill Clinton’s blah blah blah, he’d get a little annoyed and explain to the student that he’s the Books guy, not the Doin’ Stuff guy (this sounds mean, but you had to be there). He was some sort of grown-up hippy who was really witty and sarcastic; it was a neat combination. I can’t speak to many practical applications, but his classes were just a blast, and I always scoured the course catalog to see if he was teaching a something I could feasibly sign up for.
My daughter worshiped her JROTC teacher during high school. For a while there, about every other sentence that came out of her mouth began with “Major Merriweather says…” Speaking as a parent, I’m glad that she had an excellent adult role model during those years. She was a pretty good kid, but every kid needs a non-parental adult to look up to. She didn’t go into the military, though she thought about it, and she learned a lot in JROTC. I didn’t really want her in that class to start with, and I told her so, but I also told her that it was time for her to start making her own decisions, and this was one that I was going to let her make. I’m glad that I was wrong about this, she enjoyed JROTC.
I just googled Mr Howlett (not his real name) and discovered that, wow, he was way more eminent than I’d realised. He has his own Wikipedia entry and his obituary was in the major national broadsheets. He had been the history editor of a major publishing house. And had written with A.J.P. Taylor. He only taught at my school to make ends meet while he wrote books. He retired the year after he taught me. I was amazingly privileged to have met and to have been mentored by him.
My sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Bradbury, was the best.
I had him during the school year of 1966-67. It was his first year of teaching, he was young, enthusiastic, not burned out.
He liked science fiction and fantasy literature, and read us a chapter of The Hobbit every day. I thought I wouldn’t like it, but came to realize I couldn’t wait for the next chapter! And this was the year Star Trek-TOS started, so when he had us practice writing a short story he said to make it a science fiction story.
I was never bored in his class. The summer after school was over he got married and we, his class, were all invited. Eight showed up, all girls. Four of us were driven to the wedding by my parents, as Dad was born in the small town where the wedding was. It was my first time wearing stockings. This was before pantyhose. Mom coached me in wedding etiquette and I felt so grown up. Mr. Bradbury seemed glad to see us too!
A few years ago he retired and I attended the reception held for him. He was principal at a local elementary school.
Mr. Bradbury stands out as the best and most memorable teacher I ever had.