Your favorite teacher

[jimk]

Summer thread for sure, meant for any teacher you ever had, kindergarten to PhD, but favorite ski instructor is good too

I studied under this guy in college, Dr. Gordon Prange: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_W._Prange
He had seen Hitler speak as a grad student in Nazi Germany and served as MacArthur’s chief historian in occupied Japan. He was so good I took four military history classes from him and became a History Minor. He would actually reenact excerpts from Hitler’s speeches in class, fluid German, goose-stepping included!?!

 

[ctenidae]

I had a chemistry teacher in high school (who's name I, sadly, forget) who started the first day of class in a great way. She walked in about 5 minutes after the bell rang, with a little piece of trash that she tossed in the garbage can as she walked by, saying "Okay kids, first day of class, we're going to talk about lab safety, which I know no one wants to talk about. First lesson is on handling glassware safely." She picked up a handful of test tubes, and said, "There's a right way to deal with glass," and tossed the tubes on the table without breaking any of them. "And there's a wrong way to handle glass," and picked up a handful and dropped them on the table, braking them all.

By this time the garbage can had started to smoke faintly, and without looking at it, she sai, "Now, when you dispose of chemicals and reagents, you do have to pay attention- you might think you know what's in your beaker, but you have no idea what someone else poured down the sink, or threw in the garbage." The garbage can was dumping out a fair amount of smoke by this time. "And some of this stuff can get pretty nasty." At which point the garbage can exploded in a ball of steam and a very loud "Foomp." "So, let's be careful, shall we?"

The "garbage" she had thrown away as she came in was a little piece of sodium in a piece of foil, with a couple inches of water in the can. Chemistry class was fun, and I learned that, if you are careful and know what you're doing, you can do damn near anything. A couple of us had great fun with nitrogen triiodide, a nice little contact explosive that makes big clouds of purple smoke. Among other things.

 

[Tin]

I had one professor in a Holocaust Seminar who emigrated to NYC and became a history prof. Crotchety old guy but amazing professor with so much knowledge.

The second professor is what got me into philosophy. I was sitting in Ethics class on my 21st birthday sipping on a Jack and Coke not paying attention when he said "If your dog pees on your bed, can you pee on your dogs bed?". It is how I ended up doubling up. I like my philosophy degree more than any of my others and think it gave me better skills than my bio or psych degrees.

 

[Domeskier]

"If your dog pees on your bed, can you pee on your dogs bed?"

I cannot be the only person who would greatly appreciate the answer to this question.

 

[Not Sure]

7th Grade English , Mr Romig ,5'6", 50 something shaped like a V , Body of Hulk Hogan and the face of W C Fields.wore a low cut leisure suit and a turtleneck .Would wander the halls singing loudly.
Would walk around the room on his hands! One day he walked out the door and up 2 flights of stairs!

 

[Hawkshot99]

8th grade History, Mr Arenson. He had a skill of teaching without you knowing it. He made history a lot of fun.
When he was absent he would get some OLD guys to be subs who were WWII vets and have them tell us about there services.
We used to play games in class such as "chubby bunny" (how many marshmellows you could fit in your mouth while saying chubby bunny), randomly on a hot day he bought ice cream on his lunch and made us all milkshakes in class with a lacrosse stick off the wall.
He taught me about this little known sport to my area called lacrosse, and taught me to love it (he was the varsity head coach) and leant me pads to join a youth league till I bought my own.
One wall of his class room was brick. Every year each student was alowed to go and paint 1 brick however they wanted. That was 16 yrs ago, and the bricks are still there and painted (my neighbor is now a teacher in that school, and he went and took a pic of my brick for me).

Sadly after he retired he moved to SC and was almost imediatly diagnosed with some advanced type of cancer. He was single and decoded to end his life instead of fighting it "alone". I had a lot of bad feelings about him after that untill our lacrosse program had a memorial service were we talked about him and told stories of how great he was.

Thanks Mr A, for making me love history and the sport of lacrosse.

 

[joshua segal]

I've had a lot of great teachers, but since this is a skiing forum, let me suggest a ski instructor named, Barbara Marshall. She works at Sugarbush and only teaches private lessons. If you are an advanced skier looking to make significant improvements in hi-end skiing and/or moguls, you'd do well to book a lesson with her, but you have to do it in advance. She is that good and books up fast.

 

[prsboogie]

I cannot be the only person who would greatly appreciate the answer to this question.

I'll give you a +1 on that!

 

[prsboogie]

Mrs Bactel Sophomore English class, she was about 40 maybe 5 feet 90lbs and a runner, she ALWAYS wore a mini and loved to sit on the front of her desk,

 

[drjeff]

Sentimentally, my mom (she was an elementary school teacher before retiring and while I never had her for a specific grade, I learned an immeasurable amount from her!)

Non sentimentally, Mr Nelson, my 11th + 12th grade mechanical drafting and environmental sciences teacher - hands down showed me the passion in learning about things and that it's not just effort, but a desire to learn and push the envelope of what can be done

 

[SkiFanE]

Mr Horne - 10th grade English. Spent the class storytelling - great sense of humor. I went to METCO HS (Bostonians know what I mean) - and at that time he recognized rap as a form of writing. The Sugar Hill Gang had just released the first popular Rap song (Rappers delight) - and Mr. Horne let a METCO kid sing the entire song to the class - he knew every word. I still remember the vibe in that room that day - incredible. He used to go on and on about his demented mother and moving her to nursing home (sad, touching and funny).

Then when it was time to write college application essay - he had workshops where you'd bring your writing and he'd edit/rewrite on his own time. I doubt a teacher like that would survive long in today's standardized "teach to the test" mentality.

 

[BackLoafRiver]

Probably Mr. Parker, my Junior/High School Band director. Pretty sure I wouldn't be doing what I am today if it wasn't due to him. There are all kinds of whacky stories about how when he would get pissed, he would take this yellow metal Tonka Dumptruck and a hammer and beat the crap out of it in the hallway. He was odd and probably would be diagnosed this some form of autism today. (I'd put large sums of money on Aspberger's) We would have some strange fundraisers (a 12 hour band-a-thon where we would play at the school for 12 straight hours to raise money. We'd eat a ton of junk food and sight-read) and had many memorable trips. He is who instilled my love for jazz.

In reality, he was kind, supportive, and one of the only teachers who really kept me honest about being lazy and a horrible student. Sure, our band sounded...well...it was what it was. He also gave me some of my favorite memories of schooling.

 

[jimk]

It's often the encouragement and confidence we get from a teacher that is more important than the subject matter. I had a high school track coach and math teacher who was the first person outside my parents who convinced me I could be outstanding at something/anything in my own little way.
Here's to all the unsung teachers out there:beer: