**Spill About Your Favorite Teacher/Professor Ever!!**

[WritingIsMyReligion]

You must have had one--even if only one!--teacher who was just damn cool, a teacher to whom you could somehow relate, and was just someone who was influential to you in some way.

My favorite teacher ever, who I highly doubt will ever be "replaced" by another favorite, was my honors literature teacher in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. This woman is just kick-ass. I mean, you have to be funny to successfully teach certified gifted children, and she was so riotously funny. But what was more--she treated us like people, not just students, and we were always her equals, in a sense. Everyone adored her, just adored her, mostly because she was too smart--and too good at teaching--to not like. I mean, she gave as good as she got--I love teachers with personality, and she did not lack that. At all. :D ;)

But the best thing that she ever did for me was to get me started writing. She inspired my first-ever piece of fiction, because she told me that I was good at it. She showed me that I was a natural, someone bright, and she always tells me that someday I'm going to be famous. It's hard to believe that sometimes, but I don't ever forget how she told me that. I don't think I would have the courage, or the determination, to call myself a writer had I not met her.

I still see her a lot--she's been a huge help in advocating for me at the high school, since the high school administration is....lacking, shall we say...in its determination to help truly gifted kids succeed. She is a champion for honors students everywhere.

So, for making me love my writing, and myself, and for standing there ever as a stalwart guard and friend, in a sense-- I love ya dearly.

:loveya:

;)

WIMR

[ZombieNixon]

1. I'm not sure I can pick just one.

Off the top if my head, my high school history, Spanish (freshman/junior years), math and computer (sophomore-senior years) teachers helped and influenced me immensly...not to mention my high school principal who's now my business partner and to whom I owe my livelihood ever since he gave me $1000 to start a software company (which is still sitting in the bank because I can't figure out 3D vector calc x()

But, yeah, here's to you guys. :toast:

[WritingIsMyReligion]

3. People rag on teachers all the time...

They deserve better than that.

And the REALLY good teachers...Damn, they're so rare it isn't even funny. But when you get 'em....

:patriot:

:toast:

[ZombieNixon]

7. Yeah, I was really lucky to have so many at once.

Best part: my computer teacher was really into politics, like me, so since senior year was election year, we'd talk about the election every day. He was a registered Republican, and I convinced him to change his party registration to Libertarian but vote for Kerry! :D

[WritingIsMyReligion]

17. That's cool!

:D

[The Sushi Bandit]

2. She was the one I had sex with at the end of the first week!

boy did I learn alot!

[WritingIsMyReligion]

4. Meant to be funny?

'Cause I'm not exactly laughing....

:shrug:

[The Sushi Bandit]

5. Just being honest

All my profs were flat, dull, uninspiring, or stuck in the 40's
all my inspiring teachers were in Junior and high school!

[uppityperson]

8. you talking college?

[The Sushi Bandit]

10. Yep!

english lit if i remember right... it was awhile ago!

[WritingIsMyReligion]

18. LOL..Just checking.

;)

[miss_american_pie]

6. Oh a bunch

My 2nd and 5th grade teachers. All my English teachers through high school.

I adored almost all of my professors. Except for the visiting professor from Italy who kept writing notes in Greek, well after we told him none of us read Greek.

I lucked out.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

19. "It's Greek to me."

;)

[uppityperson]

9. college instructor, old nurse of probably 50 yrs of age, ancient

challenged we students, made us prove what we said and then she'd ok it. Also had another instructor, newly graduated and first job teaching that thought she knew it all and wanted to teach us all she knew, not recognizing that we needed to learn, not her teach. Together it was a good class (nursing)

[WritingIsMyReligion]

20. Interesting.

:D

[grannylib]

11. Oh man, I have been lucky to have SO many good teachers/profs...

but I have to say that my Dad was the best.
Never had him for any formal classes or anything, and he was not formally a teacher (he was a Lutheran minister) but his passion for learning and his respect for curiosity and one's desire to know was very infectious.
Miss him every day.

Otherwise, Tom Collins, one of my psych profs, was awesome. (And yeah, that's really his name!)

[WritingIsMyReligion]

21. Best teachers, for me anyway, always seem to be liberal arts teachers.

:shrug:

:D

[BikeWriter]

12. My favorite was a high school Literature Teacher...

She was a superb teacher and danged good looking. I recall one essay I wrote on how much I adored women. She thought it so cute she asked permission to show it to her husband. Oh yes, she gave me a good grade on it, too!

[WritingIsMyReligion]

22. The aforementioned teacher of mine dragged a ton of my stuff home

to her husband, apparently. He's probably read me as much as she has!

:rofl:

[BikeWriter]

27. ROFL! Yep, it's cool when they take pride in you. ;-)

[WritingIsMyReligion]

28. I e-mail her poetry all the time.

Got this response once:

"I like the poems very much, particularly 'Pianist.' I shared them
with my jazz pianist husband-I hope you don't mind. He's very
impressed. You are talented, my friend. Don't lose your enthusiasm
for writing."

Pride in me?

:D

[BikeWriter]

34. Yep, it's obvious! ;-)

[WritingIsMyReligion]

35. I know.

I :loveya: this woman.

:D

[nickgutierrez]

13. I've had one.

Let me start with saying that I'm a pretty tough person to communicate with. I'm sure the first few weeks, during which I try to "figure somebody out", can be downright frustrating - I'm an extreme introvert, and it really comes out with people I don't know well.

I never had to work very hard in high school - school in general, really. Even now, my work ethic sucks, and it's almost certainly the reason I've bounced out of one college, and just starting to figure out how to get going at my new school. So, we've established that I'm lazy and difficult to communicate with. This, of course, means it's very tough for somebody to really get my attention - especially not if that person also has to communicate with maybe 30 other students, almost all of whom had to - and did - work much harder than I did.

This teacher was the first one to "rattle my cage", so to speak. To put it in no less of a significant way than it actually deserves, she taught me how to write. Challenged me to break out of the narrow, stifling ways in which formal writing was done at that point in my education, and how to use long-form communication to work through various issues, rather than simply starting with a conclusion and finding ways to support it.

Of course, all the newfound skills in the world don't do a thing for you if not for ideas. She explained racism, sexism, classism in ways that we understood, in ways that didn't make them seem like an abstract concept from past times but as the present-day realities that they are, and the role they played in our day-to-day lives. She taught us how "facts" can lie, how the news can deceive, and how the people we rely on the most to tell us the truth are often the ones offering the most blatant lies.

I mean, come on: the lady introduced me to Kurt Vonnegut. She's got to be great. :)

[BikeWriter]

15. Introducing you to Vonnegut is a big plus!

[WritingIsMyReligion]

23. Sounds sort of similar to my situation.

I've been told that I'm a hard, hard, hard person to impress/engage in serious conversation....Must be the INTJ in me. :D

[nickgutierrez]

26. Funny thing about that

I took a Myers-Briggs a few weeks ago. It came out almost exactly the same as yours, just with a "P" instead of a "J".

[WritingIsMyReligion]

29. Heh.

;)

[bertha katzenengel]

14. Mr. Tom Baker, seventh grade (k-8 school)

Taught me guitar basics and self-esteem. I'll never forget him.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

24. Music teachers are almost always danged good.

Or so it seems to me. ;)

[unsavedtrash]

16. Dr. Ed Passerini New College @ the University of Alabama

He designed and built the world's first fully solar car. He is one of the most brilliant men I will ever have the privilege of knowing. He is a rabid environmentalist. He started the recycling program at the university, has headed or been a part of pretty much every major environmental group in the state. His classes were amazing. He taught me critical thinking and to think of the impact even one person makes on this planet. He taught me to think for myself. If a student expressed an opinion in class, he would make them debate that opinion until the person realized it wasn't something they were just repeating because their parents had told them to believe but what they themselves actually thought and could get behind with evidence and passion. He is retiring from New College at the end of this semester. He has had a huge impact on my life and I will miss him greatly.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

25. Wow. That's awesome.

:thumbsup:

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

30. I think she saved my life.

I came out to my friends when I was 15. My family pulled me out of the closet at 16. I've always liked to write and obviously, I was writing some lesbian-themed stuff. So my mother searches my room and reads all my notebooks. I came home to have my mother flipping the fuck out on me telling me that I'm going to hell, that I'm sick etc. My dad was pissed off, but he was an atheist, so he had no moral issues with it. He just didn't want his kid to be gay. My mother even briefly took me to a pyschiatrist, because she thought meds would make me straight. Well, the guy was just a perv that really wanted to know the sexual fantasies of a 16-year-old in detail. I refused to speak to the guy and after a couple weeks, my dad put his foot down and stopped letting my mother take me. So my mother decided to take all my notebooks and paper, unless it was a school notebook, I couldn't have it. She said that if I wanted to write, I could go to her and she'd give me one of my notebooks, then when I was done, I had to give it back to her. I eventually found out where she was hiding them, so I destroyed everything I wrote. I got in major trouble for it. Even though I had a lot of friends at school, my mother made my home life a living hell and I was suicidal. I had started cutting.

At the same time, I was in Honors Humanity. I had a really awesome young teacher and I just always kind of knew that I could trust her. We kept a writing journal in the class and it was considered private, but we had to hand in something of our choice from it monthly. I wrote an entry about what my mom did with my notebooks at home and freaking out on me for being gay. That was the next piece I handed in. So she came to me in the hallway one day and just told me that if I ever needed anybody to talk to, I could always go to her. Also, that I was a really good writer and there was no reason to stop because of my mom or feel that I ever need to destroy anything. She told me that I needed to keep writing and that any notebooks or books I didn't want to leave in my room, I could leave it in her desk. That she would never read anything of mine, unless I showed it to her. I knew she was telling the truth, so that's what I did. I ended up doing awesome in her class and I kept writing, but I also stopped cutting.

When it came time for me to pick my senior classes, she told me to take her creative writing class. It turns out English AP was held at the same time. When I told her that I couldn't take creative writing because it conflicted with English AP, she told me that, if I wanted, she would mentor me in a Gifted & Talented Creative Writing Independent Study. That's what I ended up doing. I felt completely comfortable showing her anything I wrote or talking about anything with her. I always worked really hard for her and I get great grades, which was fairly unusual for me. I'm the ADD gifted student that just really doesn't care about grades, plus I shut down, if I don't like the teacher etc. Over my senior year, we ended up becoming really good friends.

Even today, we're still friends. We share our writing, go to poetry events, occaisonally hit up bars. I actually ended up taking her to get her first tattoo after she left her husband. My sister was just like, "I can't believe you're taking my English teacher to get tattooed today." The tattoo came out very nice and she's now with the kind of guy that she deserves, and we all hang out together now.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

32. That's an awesome story!

I'm so glad she was there for you when you needed it--and I'm so sorry about all the hell you went through. :hug:

My teacher is considerably older than me--almost 55 to my almost 15. But I love her dearly. I think I can almost call her "friend," now, which is a delight--I've adored her quite literally since day 1.

:hug:

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

36. My mother's better now.

My dad died three years ago, but he ended up being cool with it. My new stepdad is totally fine with it as well. My stepbrother is only 13, but we all think he's gay. My stepdad already came to me and said, "if Chris comes out, it's good that you'll be able to help along and stuff."

[WritingIsMyReligion]

38. That's very encouraging.

:hug:

[Xipe Totec]

37. Thank you for sharing this story

I am so glad you survived to become who you are.

Your writing is a credit to your teacher.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

39. You're welcome.

Oh yeah, and the year after I graduated, she was nominated for teacher of the year. She asked me to write one of her rec letters. I did and she won.

[Xipe Totec]

31. Pat Crofts, College Algebra

Turned me from a mathematics hater to a mathematics lover. He is single-handedly responsible for my second college major (yes, Math). He was the best damned teacher ever. My alma-mater set up an endowed scholarship in his name (April 9, 1987).

He also threw the best parties at his house. He played the guitar, sang, and had an endless repertoire of jokes and stories.

It was a privilege to have personally known this human being.

Rest in peace, Pat, and thank you for the career you made possible.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

33. Short, to the point, and touching.

I like your post very much.

:thumbsup:

[fudge stripe cookays]

40. I have a couple...

Bob DeMunbrun at Madison HS in San Antonio
Pam Griffis at Madison HS
Connie O'Hearne at St. Louis Catholic in Austin
Larry Gleeson, Art History at UNT in Denton

Mr. D (as we all fondly called him) really increased my vocabulary and fostered my writing gifts. He was our advanced English teacher. We had a list of vocab words on the board every day that we had to copy down. At the time, it was a pain, but I still remember and use some of them today. I once wrote an essay about my dad dying, and he wrote on there "It's kind of ludicrous to put a grade on your feelings isn't it? But I know your dad would be proud of this." Also told me my writing reminded him of Eudora Welty. He died several years ago, and thanks to someone on Classmates.com who let everyone know that he had passed, I went to his service at one of the missions in San Antonio. When they asked folks to get up with their memories, I told of being a new student beginning of junior year, and having him take me under his wing. I did a couple of impressions of him, and people really enjoyed it. I had two people come up to me after the service and profusely thank me for sharing the stories with them.

Dr. Griffis instilled a love in me for all things French. She had gotten a doctorate from the Sorbonne, and lives, eats, breathes, sleeps French. It was the first foreign language class I ever took, and I adored every minute of it. Got straight A's (dropped to B's the second year because of the plus que parfait and the conditional). She took a group of us to France the summer of 1983, and I was able to put my skills into action.

Mrs. O'Hearne was my advanced English/Literature teacher in 7th grade. It was due to her influence that my love of reading became an insatiable need to read anything and everything. And mainly because of her that I began writing seriously. I was working on a mystery novel with I was 12. She had grammar rules (like not starting a sentence with "I"), and there were certain "No" words we couldn't use, like "thing" or "stuff." You had to find a good word to actually DESCRIBE what you meant.

Dr. Gleeson is one of those very eloquent art history professors who loves art, and should have been an actor. Many of the students at UNT HATE him. They think he's arrogant, or hate the fact that he knocks off 2 points EVERY time you misspell something in one of your essays (not fun if you have to describe the works of Antonio Pollaiuolo), or that's he's a martinet or grades too tough. I ADORED the man's classes. I was fortunate enough to have him for 18th and 19th century art. I've always been an A+ speller, so I never had a problem with my essays getting eviscerated like some people did. And I love art history more because of his fascinating lectures.

[elehhhhna]

41. Jason Gansauer, HS English, coached me on the speech team to

the state championships (i took 3rd in Original Comedy). A brilliant, funny man.

Oddly, my husband looks just like him. Go figure.

[Ohio Joe]

42. Father Bowens

At the end of my sophomore year of high school, my parents were asked to put me in another school and that I was not welcome back (why is a long story, suffice it to say I deserved it). I wound up being sent to a small catholic school and Father Bowens was my religion teacher. I was not raised catholic but was somewhat familiar with it. Each day, almost regardless of he topic, we went back and forth, debating whatever it was we were learning. He never really tried to convert me and always respected my point of view (as I did his) even though his faith and my lack of it were almost always a odds. At graduation, I was surprised that he named me 'best student of religion'. I asked him why, after-wards and he told me that even though I had come no closer to believing the catholic faith he felt I had always tried to at least understand it and learn it rather then just repeating what I was told.

[Reverend_Smitty]

43. I have a few...

while I've had my share of stinkers in high school and college, by and large my experience with teachers has been quite positive. However there are some that stand out above the others.

My 7th and 8th grade religion teacher, she was just such an awesome lady someone who you could talk to about anything. In fact we still keep in contact, we will IM each other on occasion and she is taking me out to dinner in a couple of weeks to celebrate my college graduation. She once told me that I was her favorite student ever which really meant a lot to me.

The athletic trainer at my high school, I took a sports medicine class with her my Sophomore year and started volunteering in the training room. I basically spent every day after school working with her from my sophomore to senior year. I learned so much from her and she inspired me to go to school for athletic training.

The head athletic trainer at my college. He is the most brilliant clinician I've ever met and I can honestly say I'm a better person for having known him. He has such a passion for his job and teaching that you can't help but get excited for learning.

There have been many others who have touched my life in a positive way but these three have shaped me into the person I am today.