How about a teacher thread?

[walkin jack]

Share with us one or two of your best and one or two of your worst. What made them so? Here's mine:

Best:
My 4th grade teacher Mrs Myrtle White. She was 5' tall and 5' wide and ugly as 10 miles of dirt road. But she was Sweeter than a jar of honey with sugar sprinkled on it. She love kids had about 10 grand kids of her own and she was all about reading.

I will always fondly remember her sitting behind her desk, behind her horn-rim reading glasses and reading to us. The first book she read is the reason I'm so passionate about reading all my life. It was titles Johnny Texas on the San Antonio Road. I can't remeber who wrote it and I know she'd be disappointed in me for this.

She had a soft clear voice and perfect diction. And she was a good reader. Her voice always reminded me of butter melting on an ear of sweet corn. The story was about a young boy forced to go for help when his father was hurt on the farm in South Texas. The perilous trip to town in the horse drawn wagon was fraught with snakes and bandits and thunder storms. I hung on every word as she read.

She was also a very easy teacher to learn from and make good grades from. Read the assigned chapters on Mondays, discuss on Tuesdays. Review and practice test on Wednesdays and test for grade on Thursdays. Fridays was art day and reading day and make up day. She was great.

My 7th grade general shop teacher, Steve Barnes. A very cool guy. Single, liked teenagers, in his late 20s. He was really good with all the boys in his classes and helped us out in many ways. His door was always open and you could talk to him and trust him.

He had a '56 Ford Crown Victoria that had 9 coats of hand rubbed royal blue lacquer on it and lots of chrome. Rolled and pleated blue and white naugahide interior. Blown out steel pack mufflers. I would have gladly murdered my entire family for that car.

When I was in the 11th grade we heard that he died of brain cancer. I was never quite the same after that. It was my first time to lose someone I really cared about and it left some scars.

Worst:
The very worst was Mrs Ethel Wheating. Small dried up old hag that hated kids...all kids but ESPECIALLY boys. I had her for typing in my senior year. She had one of those 12" wooden rulers with the metal strip down one edge for drawing straight lines.

She had me sit on the end of a row so she could get to me when she wanted to. And she wanted to a LOT. My mother would sometimes ask me what happened to the knuckle on my left hand and why my left ear was always so red.

I took typing as a goof off course to fill my schedule out and I never really meant to learn to type. After all why would I ever need to know how to type, right? But I had to learn of face permanent disfigurement.

Close 2nd was Mrs Ruthie McCLung. 11th grade English Literature. Another dried up old bitty but she was built like a Defensive lineman. She was bitter because she was not born in England. She tried to affect a British accent that was particularly irritating and prissed around the class room scowling at all the nasty little heathens before her.

One of her saying was "A pencil is the tool of the illiterate." When grading papers she counted off for EVERYTHING. What ever could be wrong with a womans brain was wrong with her brain. She was one old cold fish.

So....what'chall got?

 

[madmikeb]

The only one that comes to mind for me was my 4th grade teacher Mrs. Maizner, (don't know if that's spelled right). It was the late sixties, she was HOT and loved to wear mini skirts! Every boy in class had the hots for her so as you all can imagine we were very well behaved.
Don't remember if we learned anything or not, but did I say she was hot, smoking hot!

 

[diamonback68]

Nuns in grade school, I guess they were alright, I don't remember. High school sucked. The coach shot me in the leg (powder burns) with a blank gun. The rest were mediocre except a hot Algebra teacher, but I did graduate with more brains than grades.

 

[DR505]

Lets see, Miss Moxley in 2nd grade...leggy hot blonde who wore fishnets and miniskirts to school...ah I loved the 60's!

And 4th grade...Mrs. Lachenburg, she was built! Looked like a naughty librarian!

Of course, as I get older, they get better looking.

 

[gdnagle]

Worst or best depends on how you look at is that by failing she kept me out of S/E Asia for another year. 10th grade English teacher. Very last day of school that year me and another guy started messing around the last few minuets of her class. Got caught by the principle as the bell rang to change classes, and not her. Well got the ol' board across the you know what. She told the class if we didn't apologize she would fail us. Well I didn't get that memo so spent another year in 10 grade passed every other quarter but they had a rule if you flunked the last you didn't go on. Oh did I mention I wasn't a honor student but didn't have any grades lower the a D.

Best teacher I didn't care for school and if Vietnam wasn't going on I probably would have quit, but now come to think of it my 11th grade English teacher was a hot dish.

None of the teacher in my school had any cool cars, but now the students were a different story.

 

[Marshwheeling]

Harold Hodgkinson, taught physics and chemistry in 11th and 12th grade. Extremely rigorous, and scary as heck, but he taught his subjects with crystal clarity. Even the guys who struggled through his courses could shine in freshman physics in college.

Don McCall, 11th grade English teacher. He had withered arm and a congenital heart condition, so no muscle tone; a lot of guys made fun of him. But for some reason, he appreciated my humor, and went to bat for me on a couple of occasions when other teachers wanted to drop the hammer on me. He lived across the alley from my folks, and after graduation was a frequent guest for bridge whenever we could get a couple of tables together.

On of the worst was at the same school, Don Horton, my 11th grade advanced algebra teacher. He mumbled at the blackboard and rubbed chalk on his upper lip. Mathematical induction as taught by him was opaque and mysterious. I nearly flunked his course, and I was a good math student with an 800 SAT. A couple years later when I got a decent TA in college it became crystal clear, and I aced it.

 

[shouldazagged]

I had a few truly great teachers.

Mrs. Roth in 8th grade (I can't recall her first name, it was the 1949-50 school year) taught me ninety percent of the grammar and sentence structure I know to this day. Studying Latin furnished most of the rest. Mrs. Roth taught us to diagram sentences, and made it an interesting challenge. We feared her a little and loved her a lot.

Having had a failed try at engineering school at Purdue, due to near-terminal ineptitude at math, I transferred to the University of Louisville. I didn't have to take the introductory world history course based on my entrance exams, but decided to take the second semester just to see how it was being taught. Dr. Sidney Terr taught it. His lectures were so spellbinding and made the subject come alive so completely that I acquired the passion for history I still have at almost 77. We often would forget to take notes because we were so engrossed. Halfway through the third course I took with him, on a day I missed the class, he walked out of the room and dropped dead of a heart attack. I'm glad I wasn't there.

I had other wonderful teachers in college and graduate school--the guy who taught Old Testament studies and Hebrew in college, Ed Beavin, was one--but Mrs. Roth and Sidney Terr had the greatest effect on my future life.

Just remembered a high school English teacher, Cordelia Smith. When we studied A Tale Of Two Cities she brought in grainy, illegally-taken photos of a 1939 execution by guillotine in France. She asked me once what I wanted to do with my life. Still fantasizing at that point, I said I wanted to be an engineer. "Nonsense," she said crisply. "You're going to make your living with words." And one way or another, I did for over fifty years.

Worst: A true emotional sadist--never physically so--who taught me, my brother and my sister in fifth grade. Terrifying-looking woman who taught by assigning insane amounts of homework and keeping her students scared spitless. Her name I won't mention, lest she has relatives on this forum who loved her. My brother and sister literally had nightmares about her for many years, and get angry thinking about her today.

Also had a physics teacher in high school whom we called Wong, because he so often was...

 

[Old 44 Guy]

I had some good ones, some bad ones & a few terrible ones. School in the 30's & 40's wasn't anything like today. We had all women teachers because of WW2. We also had some retreads that had retired & came back for the duration. One old gal had a wooden leg that creaked when she walked. My 7th grade teacher was a huge red headed woman that hated boys, me in particular. Spent a lot of time in the cloak room, that's what they called a closet. Old Mrs Jordan also beat the snot out of my left arm on occasion for getting out of line or talking. Junior high & senior high was better. The war had ended & male teachers returned. I learned much better then. Machine shop was taught by a master machinist & tool & die maker. Mr. Morton was a WW1 vet that filed master templates for the turbine blades on a steam powered Liberty ship. Mr. John A. Spade was an Infantryman manning a 30 Cal. machine gun & was captured during the Battle of the Bulge. He told us another war was coming so I joined the California Cadet Corps in high school. At least I knew how to march when Korea came along.

 

[427mach1]

My 5th grade teacher - Mr. Lanigan, Finch Elementary School in Spokane, Washington circa 1972-73. We had a class constitution that spelled out all rules as well as punishment for all "crimes", such as tipping over in your chair. One kid would tip over, walk to the front of the class, and bend over for his "hack". We spent one day on a 20-mile bike ride around the area. After we completed a unit on American Indians, we had a weekend "Indian campout" at a nearby lake. He was the kind of teacher that would wrestle with the boys, where he usually ended up under a pile of about 15 classmates. The last day of school, he stood at the door, shook the hands of all the boys, and hugged all the girls. Everyone had tears in their eyes.

 

[mtgianni]

Clair Green, RIP. He was a great guy who taught me the fundamentals of trigger release and front sight focus. He taught School and Drivers Ed for a day job but shot for fun.

 

[meaneyedcatz]

I am left handed and in the late 60's early 70's if you were left handed then you were a son of the anti Christ. My 3rd grade teacher did not teach me to write right handed but forced me to write right handed. Thanks to Mrs. Perry my writing (left handed) looks like a horse walked through mud.

One of my 5th grade teachers came in drunk after lunch and told me my butterfly that I colored looked nasty.

The best teacher I know is my wife.
Retired after 27 years and poured her whole career, heart and soul into her students. She is a fantastic teacher, mother and wife and commited her.
She taught history and Bible and devoted her whole life and career to Christ. She's mine and you can't have her. BOO YA!

 

[LVSteve]

I moved around a lot as a kid and I'd had my fill of teachers by the time I reached high school age.

I had a very good French teacher called Mr Howe my first year in what was called a grammar school (11-18 year olds) in England. Just how good he was became apparent by the hopeless bumblings of the guy that had us for French the next year. I have erased that man's name from my memory on grounds of incompetence. It was feast or famine in that establishment. I recall an excellent geography teacher, but also a moody chemistry teacher who taught chemistry well, but had been asked to leave another school after an incident involving a briefcase and how it rendered a student unconscious.

My second grammar school I think was less of a school and more of a place where certain adults and children gathered for 6.5 hours a day. Stand out teachers were Hugh Ottaway, English and also did reviews for the BBC, Mr Noon who taught chemistry and Mr Lewis, history.

The not so clever ones were as follows. Another history teacher who shall remain nameless, but I'm pretty sure it was my class that finally put him in the funny farm. Then there were the two useless French teachers, one woman who could not control a class to save her life and later a Welsh French teacher whose Welsh accent bled right through into French, at least to my ears. Hard to take him seriously after that.

Then we had a deputy headmistress who was so far left she considered Stalin one of Hitler's lap dogs. Had I been allowed to drive at the time I would of cheerfully volunteered not to see her on a crosswalk one day. It needed putting down. Then I had another Welsh teacher (with less of an accent) who taught German. What's so bad about that, you ask. Well, it seems that most of his German contacts were in East Germany, and given this was the 1970s and I was the son of a British Civil Servant, this news did not fill me with deep joy.

In the interests of full disclosure I should point out that in that second school my year was divided alphabetically up until I was 16, and I was in the second half. For some reason this half included the front row of the rugby scrum and all those who learned Kung-Fu or went off to do "things they didn't talk about" for the Army or the Foreign office. Just call us Thug Central and you'll be close enough. To say the teachers didn't always have an easy time with us was an understatement. This included the one games/maths teacher who we caught in flagrante with the temp maths lady. We had him by the short hairs and he knew it.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

My 6th Grade teacher on the Upper east Side of Manhattan, P.S. 93, 1960-61. I will condemn her to anonymity, much the same way Von Hindenburg got his revenge on General Max Von Hoffman who constantly belittled him by not mentioning him once in his memoirs. She didn't like me, I didn't like her. My mother didn't like her either. Second worst, the woman I had for Music Appreciation or whatever the course was in 8th Grade. I became a classical music buff not because but in SPITE of her.
Those in the education field would do well to remember the words of one of my professors in my MBA at Rutgers, the late Professor Paul Nadler 1930-2007. He said:
"The real failures of the education system are not those who don't learn-you always have those. It's those who come out alienated and offended and turned off."

 

[galena]

Mr Clarence McKinley, high school Industrial Arts teacher. I had two years of wood shop with him; however, he was also my Scout Master and Sunday School teacher for about five years. My father abandoned us when I was two years old so I was raised by a single Mother in the 1950s. I had an attitude and a punk approach to everything. Mr McKinley basically kept me out of reform school. He was a WWII
vet, tough but fair, and no patience for nonsense. He straightened me out and gave me the foundation for a successful life. When I was 14 he asked me what I wanted to be in life and then chewed me out royal because I said I didn't know. Twenty-two years in the Air Force and retired as an O-5. Not bad for a one time entry level hoodlum. I lost track of him over the years but I owe him a lot.

 

[rwsmith]

Way too progressive...

Our 6/7th grade teacher, besides being a knockout, looks-wise and karate-wise, was a teacher that the kids loved. Alas, ours was an 'old school' school and she was way to progressive for the old coots. The you-know-what of a principle used every trick to make her look bad and sometimes we took lumps to keep her from getting in trouble. No use, they didn't renew her contract. That was 50 years ago and people still rave about Mrs. Caine.

The old you-know-what of a principle had a 'favorite' teacher named 'Whitlock'. She was known as 'Witchlock' and a few other words that rhyme with 'witch'. I'm sure she was the worst ever.

Another teacher I enjoyed class with was affectionately known as 'Elsie' because of her endowments. Like others at the time she wore short skirts and we made sure we wrote on the chalkboard REAL high so she'd have to stretch up to erase it.

There was also a teacher called 'Squirrely' Jones' which was derived from the way she sat on her desk. She HAD to have dirt on all of the Principles because she taught there for years when she should have been gone in a flash.

Mr. Singleton was an ok teacher, but drank too much from the bottle he kept in his desk, but he told great stories about being a mortician.

Coach Joe Thompson taught science and only recognized football players and girls. This was in the days of 'Broadway Joe' Namath and we called him 'Montague Joe' after the street the school was on. The liking for the girls caught up with him a few years later.

How could I forget 'Bo' Southwood as my most hated coach. He managed to destroy the integrity of the Varsity program. At the beginning of the year he set the number of points required to achieve a Letter in track which I exceeded by a few points and was rather proud of myself. At the end of the year he allowed the people that DIDN'T get enough points to compete with each other in an 'intersquad meet' and win a letter. There was a group of seniors about to give me a hard time in the hall when one whispered to the others, "He earned his." and they went on.

Our favorite coach, 'Fergy' Ferguson, who the year after the Bo Southwood debacle built us into a great team and made it seem easy.


Most of my teachers ran from good to great. Sure there were a few clunkers, but I''m glad those old bats taught us something because within a few years most of the teachers were druggies, thieves and frauds. My younger brother followed 10 years after me.

R.I.P. to my great teacher, Mrs. Smith who was just out of college herself, who died recently at the young age of 67.

 

[LVSteve]

Mr. Singleton was an ok teacher, but drank too much from the bottle he kept in his desk, but he told great stories about being a mortician.

You just reminded me of another character from my schooldays. "Med" was my year tutor or some such. I never had lessons with him but he was supposed to take the register morning and after lunch. Many of the after lunch registers were taken by a couple of the girls who sort of volunteered to be class monitors because of his habit of being late back from his lunch at the pub. Lovely bloke and quite an accomplished folk musician.

 

[Shorty 45 MK2]

For grade school years, I was homeschooled, so my best teacher was my Mother. She spent so much time helping all six of us kids as well as keeping house, I don't know how she did/still does it with the youngest two that she is still teaching.

In collage the best was Mr. Smith my machining instructor. The worst was Mr. Dammer (that is his real name.) my PSY teacher.

 

[mg357]

The best teachers I ever had was my math teacher freshman year of high school Mrs. Ivers. she was very patient understanding and helpful.

My second best teacher, was my junior high school, history teach Mr. Gilmer he was a great history teacher.

My WORST teacher was my 8TH Grade math Teacher Mrs. Stephanie Moss, she was satan in high heels.

she made my 8th grade school year HELL on earth, to this very day August 11th 2014

I still have nightmares and flashbacks about the misery she put me through.

I hope I have not hijacked or messed up the thread in anyway.

 

[sophie]

Too many teachers, not enough time.

 

[coltle6920]

The only teachers I liked were the ones who never tried to compare me to my older brother who was two years ahead of me.

You know the type of sibling...Honor Society...class VP...total egghead! I told the teachers that if they couldn't appreciate my individuality they wont want to be around when the last seven siblings come through.