Your best teacher

Reading the Your Worst Teacher thread made me sad, so: tell me about your best teacher!

I’m actually lucky enough to not be able to choose among three teachers who were amazing in entirely different ways.

The first was my gifted-and-talented teacher for three years, in second grade, third grade, and fifth grade. She must have gone by the philosophy that there was no reason not to teach kids to the level of their ability, because she taught us how to multiply large numbers in third grade (not on the curriculum) and how to diagram sentences in the fifth grade (which we were told in the sixth grade was too hard for us… we all looked at each other, puzzled, but no one said anything). She taught us how to write a term paper, with references and everything. I learned more from her than, possibly, all my other grade-school teachers put together.

The second was my physics teacher. He was just a really good teacher – was the best teacher I’ve ever had at explaining things; he was also really good at inspiring interest in the subject. He was also hilariously funny. I suppose I probably would have majored in physics anyway had it not been for him, but I wouldn’t have known in high school that was what I wanted.

The third was my senior English teacher. He was a very wise man, and I learned a lot about life from him (as well as about literature). He also was the only person ever to actually teach me / the other kids in our class how to write real humanities papers with a thesis and supporting evidence. Although I got shocked by my first C paper from him, after always pulling A’s before, it certainly came in handy in college.

Hellloooo…

<moderating> Since there’s already an active “Best Teacher” thread, I’m going to close this one.

Lynn </moderating>