[susan53]

Who was your best ever teacher, and why? Mesmark's post What would you be doing? started me thinking about mine.

When I started secondary school I had a succession of really bad maths teachers. I was lost by the end of the first year and none of the ones who came afterwards did anything to resolve the situation. Four years into school I was consistently bottom of the class with "O" levels looming the following year. At the time, maths "O" level was esential to get into university and for any really decent job.

For the last year we were streamed. Needless to say, I was in the bottom stream, which was taught by our Headmistress - a five foot nothing battleship with steel grey hair and who always, absolutely always wore grey suits. On the first morning she said that it was obvious we had problems with maths or we wouldn't be there, that she was prepared to explain everything a hundred times if necessary, but that the only thing she wouldn't tolerate was anyone not trying to understand and not giving 100% to the course. And she was as good as her word. She was slow and patient, but had enormously high standards. She was also realistic. She took us through the exam syllabus, and showed us what we had time to do and would be concentrating on, and what we'd never get through in the time, given that we were starting from way behind where we should be. She said that if we really understood 66% of the syllabus, and concentrated all the time on those questions in the exam, we'd pass. If we tried to do everything, we'd just be confused about everything.

I don't think I've ever worked so hard for a teacher in my life as I did that year - which given that it was a subject where I had previously been considered a failure, and which I felt totally demotivated about, was no mean feat of motivation on her part. And it worked. I got my "O" level.

I've never forgotten her, and I think she'll always be my ideal teacher. Who was yours?

[Whistleblower]

I never really concentrated at Secondary School with my teachers but recently have started to realise the effort and commitment they put into their lessons. They also worked incredibly hard and admire their effort.

However, having graduated from Higher Education not so long ago I have some idea who my favourite teacher was in Uni. I remember this Course Leader that taught my cross-cultural management module of my degree and helped us a lot during the year. He worked incredibly hard and have to say put 150% into his lessons. I recognised that he prepared his lessons weeks in advanced and knew the curriculum. Nonetheless, he was an academic but knew how to communicate complex cultural theories in a way students would understand. Furthermore, he created a booklet complete with the most important readings for the module. This was really invaluable and helped me get throught the course.

This really inspired me that good teachers were out there and really helped you get through the course. Obviously there were teachers that just turned up taught their powerpoint slides for an hour and then went to their next class to regurgitate their powerpoint slides.

The teachers that helped students no matter the question, the teachers who prepared their classes well and inspired a sense of interest and the teachers who didn't teach but shared their knowledge are the teachers that I remember most. Student centred, not teacher centred. This is what I try to incorporate in to each class.

However, there are the really bad teachers that I remember thinking, "If I am a teacher in the future, I will not be like him/her". But my absolute worst teacher was my A-Level teacher for English Literature. He was an alcoholic and used to dissapear for his bottle and then stride into class declaring the class was hot and sweaty, even if outside was cold or snowing, and resulted opening the window to get rid of the alcoholic aromer. He predicted that my final mark/grade would be a "C" for English Literature but he didn't see the truth, that I was struggling and got an "N" mark a near pass which is a fail basically. I think if I took A-Levels again, I could probably get some decent marks but the teachers didn't really motivate me and at the age of 16-18 I was more interested in other things, especially, my then new hobby, the pub. However, it is interesting that I never really done well with English before University but since graduating and I am more and more interested in languages as well as teaching English. This is a classic example that you cannot judge a person on their education but on their achievements out of school as well as their employment experience.

Next person, who was your favourite and worst teacher?

[clivehawkins]

I was a bit wild at secondary school. Always playing up to the class and looking to disrupt things at any available opportunity.
Naturally the teachers tried to rein me in, which I naturally resisted.

The best I ever had was my Ancient History teacher. It was a small class (everyone else had chosen computer studies, as if that was going to be useful ) and so we felt a bit special. The teacher was very relaxed and gave us more freedom than we'd ever known in school. He didn't tell us off if our ties were undone or if we put our feet up on the desks. Instead he engaged us in the subject. He brought the Homeric heroes and gods to life. He got us thinking and discussing. Basically he understood what buttons to press to make us study. His efforts also paid off for the other teachers - it seemed a bit silly to be mature and responsible in his class and then go and act like an idiot in the others.

Thanks to him I chose to study Ancient History and Literature at university and to this day, some 17 years after graduating (ouch!) I still love the subject.

[Eric]

The best teacher I ever had was my algebra teacher my first year of university. she expected so much from us and pushed us so hard that most people dropped out of her class the first few weeks.

I decided to hang in there, even though at that point math was my worst subject. It was well worth it...

She gave us homework every night which she collected everyday. the problems had to be completely written out. You had to document every single calculator action on paper so she knew you understood what was going on. Same on tests, your work had to be completely documented (ie. one algebra problem would take up nearly an entire sheet of paper) or you were docked points.

For me to learn algebra, this was essential. And i actually learned it for the first time in my life! I actually, dare to say this, started enjoying it.

The last reward of the class was how this teacher opened up to us. The first few weeks/months of class she appeared very cold and a bit of a hard-*** would be understating her personality. She always wore black. Black jeans, a black t-shirt, black shoes, etc... But as we got to know her we realized there was more to her than we first thought. The day this became crystal clear to us was one day she mentioned she played the piano and sang in her free time. Being a liberal arts college, there was a piano in the classroom. We asked her, tongue in cheek, to sing for us. She floored us with her voice and her piano playing. We were all so shocked to see our hardcore, black clothes wearing math professor singing in this opera style voice.

anyway, she was my best teacher