Comments (38)

1. My favorite teacher taught advanced algebra, trig and precalc at Starmont High School in Iowa: Ms. Schmidt. She just retired, so how fitting to post tribute to her here. Recent conversations with other Starmontians have revealed a similar experience. She was so good, we all thought we were good at math (but later classes told us otherwise).

   She was demanding, NEVER allowed calculator use unless it was absolutely necessary, and cared so much that I think she almost gave herself several strokes. Before school, after school, whatever a student needed. And she was really good at pointing out, for instance, that 2X3= 6, not 5.

   posted by Rebecca on 6-2-2009 at 11:13 am

2. My favorite teacher was my 6th to 8th grade history teacher, Mrs. Garcia. She was about 6 ft tall and her attitude fit her stature. Everyone was terrified of her. Perhaps that is why we always listened, but I like to think she truly engaged us on a deeper level. She was the first person to open reality to us…both good and bad from the texts in our bland history books. I eventually got my degree in history and although I am not employeed in the field, I still feel passionate about history. I like to think she was the first person to start that fire. On a side note, her son married my next neighbor’s daughter. Small world!

   posted by marty on 6-2-2009 at 11:25 am

3. I love this topic!

   My favorite teacher would have to be Janet Tower. She taught English and Journalism at the junior and high schools I attended in Coloma, Michigan. Mrs. Tower was such a wonderfully supportive person that I often look for her online. I’ve found her through 2008, but lost her after that. (Does that make me a stalker)???

   Mrs. Tower opened my eyes to not only English, but to kindness and positive reinforcement. She was the type of teacher to send letters home to parents when their child excelled. She expected more out of me than I thought I was capable of…but she was right. I think about her often and the impact she has had on my life.

   Mrs. Tower, if you’re out there, I just want to say, “Well done! Thank you!”

   posted by Kristin on 6-2-2009 at 11:31 am

4. Mr. Kotter!!

   posted by Dave Tsunami on 6-2-2009 at 11:58 am

5. My favorite teacher was also an English teacher. His name is Mr. Ed Yoschak, and he was one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met. He was always a mystery to us, because no one knew about his past. He disappeared the year before I had him as a teacher–and, when he returned my eighth grade year, he had a scraggly, unkempt beard and he weighed at least fifteen pounds less than he did the year before. He didn’t lose any of his dynamicism, though. He’d do jumping jacks and scream and bound across desks in order to get the idea of a plot or setting across to us.

   He was certainly a mystery. I miss him–he always gave me great, college-worthy feedback on my poetry (in eighth grade!), commented with hilarious jokes on my essays, and gave me the constructive words and criticisms that I needed to become a better writer. We always did interesting class activities (if anyone is familiar with the book Johnny Tremain, we actually once held the Johnny Tremain Olympics in which we all taped our hands together and attempted to put glasses on and pick up pennies. All in the name of education, right? Ha.) I’ll never forget him.

   I owe him my career interests, anyway. Like Ransom’s Mrs. Janoff, he gave me the confidence to want to become a writer.

   posted by gillian on 6-2-2009 at 12:03 pm

6. I am exceeding lucky in that I’ve had some wonderful teachers along the way. I can probably still name all my teachers from kindergarden all the way through HS if I had to.

   I can’t just go with one, but I will par the list down tremendously:

   Mrs. Williams: 3rd Grade Teacher. One tough cookie. The troublemakers feared her. She always wore shoes that matched her handbag. She read us books aloud once a week and I still remember them (Flight of the Doves, Don’t Take Teddy, Prince & The Pauper, Lion, Witch & The Wardrobe). To this day I remember how she “turned the lightbulb” on for me when it came to fractions. I just didn’t get it. And finally she drew it out for me and suddenly I did. Gladys Williams was a true teacher.

   In high school I had AP English for 2 years with 2 very different, yet equally wonderful teachers: Mrs. Fran Young and Mr. Ken Luks. Mrs. Young made us read more than I ever did (even in college). I read more literature in my junior year. She took her essay writing seriously and everything was to the point. Mr. Luks focused on less literature but definitely more taking apart. He wanted essays to go on for pages and pages. You could never give him enough. I think my love of writing stems from both of them.

   posted by Beth on 6-2-2009 at 12:04 pm

7. My favorite teacher was my 6th grade English teacher Ms. Muriel Sokol. befiore she became a teacher.. she was a Broadway gypsy.. and she taught us all about theater and acting.. once a week.. she take time off from the fundementals and have us act things out.. to improv… the best and brightest in her classes got the chance to become a small improv troupe. I was in that troupe.. she made me feel like I could do anything, and my love for theater and writing has never waned since. I know she singled me out (she thought the best of me.. and at that time I needed it… 6th grade can be a VERY tough time in a very small girl’s life). She always thought I’d go far.. but I didn’t pursue an acting career..but I do write though.

   posted by Mindy on 6-2-2009 at 12:09 pm

8. I was the kind of student who was fascinated by teachers, so I would almost always get along with them, if only to learn a little bit about them. I had several high school teachers that I still talk about and talk to today, but the teacher that had the most impact on me probably didn’t come until this year in college, and unfortunately, she’s retiring.

   Dr. Peterson, first and foremost, helped me hone my writing skills. I thought I was a pretty good writer, but once I took her classes, I got a lot better and writing and researching thanks to her help and inspriation. We share the same opinions and ideas and last month I went on a small class trip to Icleand with her where our little group bonded and got along perfectly.

   posted by Nicole on 6-2-2009 at 12:32 pm

9. Without a doubt, Ms. Sara Merrill of Hopkinton High in MA. Imagine having Bette Midler as your French teacher for three out of the four years of high school; that’s what class was like with Madame. She taught us about French culture beyond Muzi videos, and she started AP French at my high school, even though we only had six students in the class, so that we could realize our full potential and grasp of the language. She’s definitely the reason I minored in it in college and why I still love it today. I’ve lost touch with her (I think she moved to Ohio) but if by some strange coincidence someone knows her, I would love her email address!

   posted by Jessica on 6-2-2009 at 12:40 pm

10. One of my favorite teachers was my 9th grade English teacher. Believe it or not, his name was Rod Stewart. He had 80’s permed hair, wore his shirts unbuttoned practically to his navel (chest hair everywhere!), and he would strut up and down in front of the class in his fancy cowboy boots. That was how he got his nickname, “Strut”. Scary appearance aside, he was an excellent teacher. So much so, the underachieving girl who sat next to me actually checked out a book on witchcraft to try and put a curse on him.

    However, he taught me about things like symbolism and how to look at literature from more than a literal perspective. He was also the first teacher to sit me down outside of class and ask what the heck I was doing in a regular English class when I clearly needed to be in an AP class. He really inspired me to do more than “just enough” in all my classes.

    posted by Anthony on 6-2-2009 at 12:44 pm

11. Mr. Sund at Creascenta Valley High School.

    Although it’s cliche, he was basically Mr. Keating from Dead Poets Society. He inspired us, treated us like equals, and urged a carpe diem existence. In his class, I was me.

    posted by NateJ on 6-2-2009 at 12:57 pm

12. By far, Mrs. Guppy (yes, Guppy…how cool is that??) She taught my high school Latin classes with a passion that was unmatched by anyone I have ever seen since. She lived, breathed and loved Latin, and everything about it. Imagine getting classrooms full of teenagers to get excited about a “dead” language (and boy did she have some choice words about that phrase!). My class was full of nerds, jocks, preps, and kids whose parents made them take it…and we all loved every minute of it!

    Thank you Mrs. Guppy :)

    posted by Katie on 6-2-2009 at 1:01 pm

13. mr. peters, algebra 2. i struggled and struggled with math and although i tried my damnedest, i failed. mr. peters passed me with a D. although he couldn’t get algebra through my thick skull, i learned something invaluable that i use daily with my own students: patience. he’s gone now, but his example guides me daily.

    posted by Shelly on 6-2-2009 at 1:15 pm

14. Mr. Ken Cox, who taught me Chemistry, Physics, and Computer Programming (on the Apple IIe). He taught me that it was OK to be smart, he introduced me to a “summer camp” where I met most of my bestest friends, and he told jokes that were sometimes naughty but always funny. Here’s to you, Ken Cox.

    posted by Neil on 6-2-2009 at 1:33 pm

15. I had two:

    Mr. Davis was my 11th grade English teacher. I majored in English, and he’s still without a doubt the single best English teacher I’ve ever had. I learned more from him on poetry (assonance, consonance, internal rhyme) than anyone else-I still to this day recognize some of that stuff sometimes. Plus he used Simon and Garfunkel to teach, and what’s not awesome about that? He had very high expectations of his students, and taught with passion. He was nuts, though. When Robert Downey Jr was nominated for his role in Tropic Thunder, my best friend’s reaction was “He got nominated for doing an impression of Mr. Davis!” He had a sense of humor, though-he hung a note from my best friend in his office that said “You’re the teacher I hate the least.”

    Then there was Mr. Nee, my 12th grade calc teacher. Hilarious. He’d crack on students all the time, but was always there when you needed help, in and out of class. He made math interesting, and as someone who generally hates the subject, that says something (that and the fact that I took AP Calc BC specifically because he taught it).

    I had plenty of awesome teachers, but those two stick out the most.

    posted by Kate on 6-2-2009 at 1:37 pm

16. Most of the teachers I had were middling to terrible, but I had three who were exceptional:
    1. Mrs. Jernigan, 1st grade: She was barely five feet tall, but she loved kids and loved learning. Every month had a specific topic, and she went all out on decorating her classroom. For rainforest month, she built a room-size papier-mache rainforest and played jungle sounds during reading time. She remembers all her students; I ran into her during college, and she remembered me and my little brother.
    2. Mr. Hallacy, junior high: He taught history, social studies, and a money management class that I still refer to. His test bonus questions were trivia from A Christmas Story. He was the first teacher to catch on to how miserable I was in my small farming community school and warned my mom during a parent-teacher conference that I wouldn’t be happy until college. He was 100% right.
    3. Mrs. Naylor, 12th grade English, debate, and forensics: This woman worked tirelessly for her students. Her comments on papers (and we wrote a ton) were always insightful. College English was a breeze because of her. She also coached debate and forensics, working to make us think not only about the competition but about the world at large. She was the best teacher I had in high school, hands down.

    posted by janeeyre316 on 6-2-2009 at 1:57 pm

17. Miss Rosemary LaPrise, my ninth grade English teacher. Everyone else seemed to hate and fear her, but I enjoyed her class and learned a lot from her. Even though other teachers had long since abandoned having students diagram sentences using the old-fashioned tree-style graph, Miss LaPrise made us do that regularly. She also had us write stories/essays every week, and made us read the classics, like “Pride and Prejudice” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” instead of the more youthful, “hip” books by S.E. Hinton and Paul Zindel. The rumor always was that Miss LaPrise was, by virtue of her strictness and very conservative manner of dress, a former nun. Some 20 years after I’d graduated, I attended a trivia convention. One of the women in attendance turned out to be Miss LaPrise’s youngest sister! She laughed at my recollections, and said that the rest of the family often joked about “Rosemary shoule become a nun.” Miss LaPrise’s mother had died when she was a teen, and she basically had to raise her six younger siblings, which made her mature beyond her years (and overly serious, according to younger sis, the Wild Child of the family).

    posted by Kara Kovalchik on 6-2-2009 at 2:00 pm

18. I am so going to use “Are you listening to me? I’m being fascinating!” next semester when I’m student teaching. LOVE IT!!!

    posted by Sarah on 6-2-2009 at 2:02 pm

19. Part of me was looking for my name here, and part of me knows that this topic needs to be revisited in ten years for it to occur.

    My mom used to tease me that ALL my teachers were my favorite, and she’d probably be correct. But I think that two deserve mention here, based partially on their untimely deaths and their influence on my teaching career.

    Mr. Paxson was my fourth and fifth grade English Teacher. He was the type of guy that you’d want as a grandfather: firm but kind, witty and serious. It was in his room that we would always get a joke of the day, and sometimes it was the ever-continuing Shaggy Dog joke, which I never really got. It was the F that I got on a vocab test of his that really solidified the relationship, and made me realize that every subject was important and needed to be studied. He died in 1993 of lung cancer, just after I had graduated from eighth grade.

    Ms. Guengerich (or Miss G as we called her) was my on-and-off math teacher for five years, from fourth to eighth grade. I now teach math, and a lot of her quirkiness was my inspiration for that decision. She’d put on costumes to drive home a point about geometry (As Pythagoras in a toga) or algebra (the mythical mathematical superhero FOILman) and always taught topics with enthusiasm and love. She died in 2003, my first year of teaching, due to heart complications.

    And since I seem to be talking about death, my recaptcha: toxin arrives.

    posted by Patrick J. on 6-2-2009 at 2:37 pm

20. Obama is my favorite teacher. Until him, I never knew there were 57 states in the US and that Austrian was a language.

    posted by Hurricane on 6-2-2009 at 3:03 pm

21. my fav teacher was my college bio professor, dr cusic. She was hard, no doubt to that, but she was fair. I will have to say that she taught me how to really study.
    Her test were very hard and she was very much against cheating. My fav quote from her was:
    ” Look up for inspiration, down in desperation, but never to the side for information”

    posted by Jennifer on 6-2-2009 at 3:06 pm

22. My Favorite Teacher: Mrs. Marie Maguire
    Cedar Grove, NJ

    Mrs. Maguire was my eighth grade teacher 40 odd years ago. Typical eighth graders are a flighty lot with hormones kicking in, voices cracking and puny boys kids suddenly shooting up like cornstalks in July. We were all so busy with the business of becoming teenagers we were hardpressed to fit in anything academic. Mrs. Maguire was having none of that. She recognized our distractions and, somehow, found a way to reel us in. She brought us Algebra, composition and made sure we really understood what a thesis statement was before we rushed off to become the lowly freshmen at the local High School.

    Once we made it to the BIG school she managed to follow us there becoming a Guidance Counselor for those of us lucky enough to get assigned to her watch. This is where she made a huge impact in my life. I went to her as a frightened, pregnant 17 year old about to marry her boyfriend. I was prepared to quit high school and becomne yet another statistic in the annals of girls-gone-wrong suffering that fate so many had before me. Ready to slink away with the shame of my actions. Mrs. Maguire convinced me to stay in school, verified that there was no actual law that said a married student could not continue her education and went to bat with the schools governing body to make sure I would not get railroaded out. When my pregnancy became too advanced for me to be comfortable in those awful student chairs she arranged for me to finish my classes at home with my current instructors coming to my home after regular classes had ended. This was an amazing feat in 1969. This was so long before the Baby-Daddy scenario that has become an everyday occurance that I am blown away by the effort it must have taken. All this to keep one kid in school. I graduated in June and gave birth in July.

    Years later as a divorced mother of three (did anyone see that coming?) I was able to go back to school and now have a successful career. This is because Marie Maguire saw a young girl and her potential. She let me know that she cared about me as a student but, more importantly, she cared about me as a human being. Today Mrs. Maguire is still involved in education and is an advisor to the Alumni Committee for my Alma Mater. She is an amazing educator and woman

    posted by JaneM on 6-2-2009 at 3:21 pm

23. This topic warms my heart, and should be a more frequent one.

    I have had many favorite teachers, from Mrs. Badzinski at E.P. Rock Elementary School in Hudson, WI, to Mrs. Jackson and Ms. Stenger (English teachers at Woodbury High School in Woodbury, MN) to Professors Larry Shapiro and Nancy Rose Marshall at UW-Madison.

    My father is also an elementary school teacher, and has been for almost 40 years; he is the source of my lifelong love of learning. I live in the same area as he used to teach, and I can’t count the number of people who run into me and say, “You’re Mr. K’s daughter?” He was my favorite teacher!”

    These are the teachers that make learning entertaining and fun, and make you want to work that much harder for it. These are the people who help us mold ourselves into productive, happy adults. And more often than not, they are underpaid and underthanked.

    Kudos to ALL teachers.

    posted by Kristin on 6-2-2009 at 4:02 pm

24. My favorite teacher was Ms. Ryan @ Bentley Jr. High School in Burton, Michigan. She was a very inspiring teacher and friend, and I will never forget how she made me feel about learning, but how she made me feel about myself. :)

    posted by Mike on 6-2-2009 at 4:16 pm

25. My favorite teacher was Mr. Smith. He was my 8th grade choir teacher and later became my 10 and 11 grade choir teacher, at Franfurt American Middle and High Schools in Frankfurt, Germany. He made class fun. He took no crap from anyone (students or teachers!) and expected excellence.

    I ended up graduating from a different school my senior year (the result of being a military kid), yet, he was nice enough to drive my best friend to my graduation to see me walk.

    He has since passed on. Every time I see a conductor, I think of him.

    recaptcha: mourner more

    RE: Hurricane – as much as you were trying to be funny, Austrian is a language…..

    posted by Michelle on 6-2-2009 at 4:33 pm

26. Yes – I spelled Frankfurt wrong….I’m getting old…

    posted by Michelle on 6-2-2009 at 4:39 pm

27. My favourite teacher is my Literature and Romanian teacher, Mr. Lazarescu, who still teaches at Saint Sava National College, in Buhcarest, Romania. He kind of knows it all and he used to tell us all these amazing facts about…well, everything, cause he knew it all, and he would listen to all of us mumbling and sometimes talking nonsense and would encourage us all to speak and develop our own way of writing and expressing our ideas…..Although sometimes we were considering his class boring (we were teenagers, after all), everything he told us over the years turned out to be very useful and helped us enlarge our horizons……Thats why we all thank him!

    posted by flo on 6-2-2009 at 4:48 pm

28. My favorite teacher was my sixth grade science teacher, Elizabeth Alexandra Patterson, back in 1968-69. She was demanding with a capital D. When I’d wander into the public library and ask for help looking up something like ’spermatophyte’ or ‘icosahedron’, the librarians would always mutter “Miss Patterson.” She was fired before she made tenure because so many students found her too challenging. But to those of us who wanted to learn, she was a godsend. We still talk about her 40 years later.

    posted by Antinous on 6-2-2009 at 6:22 pm

29. SEMP-DAWG! We loved him so much we made a website (Check it out– my name’s the link!)

    posted by erinbrianne on 6-2-2009 at 9:01 pm

30. Mr. Rimbold, who was my 6th grade literature teacher in Lake Orion, MI. He was really something! Tall, lanky, serious, and goofy. He really expected something of us. Right off the bat he told us that the class was not his class, but *our* class and we were just as responsible for how class went as he was. Desks were arranged so that we all faced the center of the class.

    There was also a closet FULL of pillows that his wife had made (they were tiger striped) so that when we had free time to read silently we could grab one (usually two) and read wherever we wanted to in the classroom. Sometimes we went outside. Class was relaxed, but he always expected us to be mature and not abuse our liberties.

    posted by JRJ on 6-2-2009 at 9:48 pm

31. It would have to be Mr. Hobart Cook, my chemistry teacher at Cummings High School in Burlington, NC. Anyone who went to high school there between 1970 and 2004 or so probably had him for chemistry, and even if they didn’t, they probably have “Mr Cook stories.” He also taught my dad.

    He made chemistry class FUN. The year I had him, we made rocket fuel and paint that froze if you kept stirring it. My dad says Mr Cook made contact explosives the year he had him (think pop-caps), and had scattered them all over the floor just prior to the class entering the room. If you fell asleep in his class, he would usually just set off a small explosion on your desk, without a word to you when you awoke. The administration learned to ignore any loud noises coming from his classroom unless they were accompanied by the fire alarm.

    Dad says Mr Cook once decided to repaint his car, and used latex house paint and rollers to do so. Since it was Mr Cook, no one even thought twice about it!

    He claimed to grade papers by tossing them down the stairs next to his classroom (land on the top step, you got an A, and so on).

    He really cared about his students, and impressively, even after so many years and so many students, he remembers them. He started teaching at the community college where my dad works, and remembered my dad, remembers me, and even remembers that we are father and daughter. He asks about me every time he sees my dad.

    Some years before I had him, he started talking about retiring, but it was always “well, maybe I’ll just teach one more year.” Same thing the year I had him. He finally retired from the public school system 4 or 5 years after I graduated, and dropped to only part time at the community college.

    posted by Jenn on 6-2-2009 at 11:48 pm

32. If you ask my dad, even though he’s not a huge fan of the fact that my siblings and I went to/attend a Catholic elementary school, he would say that the nuns were the best teachers that school ever saw. I would agree, although I couldn’t outright pick one as my favorite, Sister Julia Marie (4th grade) is the one who really sticks out in my mind. My class was extremely obnoxious until the day we graduated the 8th grade, and she’s probably the only nun who ever yelled “Will you please shut up!” in a classroom.
    As far as entertainment value goes, my favorite is a tie between Coach Tom Kickham and Mr. Schultz, both high school history teachers. I had Kickham for Hn. American History and AP Psychology. He really made things fun and relevant…I remember taking the AP Psychology test and everybody laughing out loud when we read the essay questions…they were either that absurdly easy or Kickham had really taught us well. Schulz taught AP European History. I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever forget as long as I live his trench warfare lecture. He wore a WWI helmet, used a volleyball net antenna as a rifle, and the couch in his classroom as the trench….jumping over it, shooting the enemies in the front row, getting hit by an imaginary bullet, and staggering 3 desks down the middle row to collapse and “die” on my desk. I thought I would die laughing!

    posted by Mary on 6-3-2009 at 1:13 am

33. Dr Carter at Blue Springs South High School will forever be my favorite teacher. She taught English, but she really taught me how to be an individual thinker. Her lessons were always full of life, even in English a subject that was not my favorite. Most of all, she was human, if you were having a bad day Dr. Carter would listen, you really felt that she cared about your well being and not just your grade. It is because of this inspirational teacher that I decided to become a teacher myself and I hope that I can inspire students the way she inspired me.

    posted by Randa Crutcher on 6-3-2009 at 3:05 am

34. My favorite teacher of all time was my high school Theatre Arts Director Bill Horton at PHS in southern oregon. We weren’t allowed to call him Mr. Horton, it made him feel old, so he was simply Bill. Mr. Horton was a brilliant man who taught me to use the soundboard, focus lights, build sets, and not let my chubby tummy and big boobs make me feel scared to play a belly dancer in front of 500 people a night for three weeks. He was a sarcastic, dry, bad tempered, dirty old man with absolutely zero patience for useless people and that is why him and I connected. We both graduated (he retired, actually) on the same day in June of 2005.

    posted by Kate on 6-3-2009 at 7:52 am

35. I ran a search on Mrs. Janoff, hoping to find something like this. I was also one of her students, many years ago. I am so pleased to find your brief article, which is just one of many testaments to her as a teacher and as a person. She will forever live in my own memory, and I only wish that others could have the same interactions with her that I did. What a wit she had!

    Hopefully, more students will post similar memories of her as you have. Thank you for doing so.

    posted by Will S. on 6-9-2009 at 1:47 pm

36. Gail Elizabeth Tillary (sp?) Richardson taught HS junior English Lit & Humanities; before that French to 4th graders. Truly related to teenagers especially as she was only around 30 at the time I knew her. She knew how to inspire you and make you think; taught lessons for life not just class. Was tough enough to make you work hard to get an A. You could always bring your troubles to her and she would understand and support you. If you were one of the lucky few you could call her friend.

    posted by MelB on 6-10-2009 at 4:14 pm

37. I just experienced my favorite teacher in junior college. Dr. Steve Hubbard was the best English teacher you could possibly have. He was certainly the one who encouraged me to stay with my major during the times I wanted to give it up. If I end up with my dream career as a writer, it will definitely be in huge part because of him.

    posted by Monica on 6-12-2009 at 10:37 pm

38. A few of my best teachers (favorite then or now upon reflective and time).
    Mr Hobart, 7th grade math, Roosevelt Jr. High, Glendale,CA. Intro the fun in math, stories, persons ( Archimeties).
    Roy Klassen, Glendale High School Choir director. Could be funny but took music and teaching seriously.
    Taught me and others the mechanics and the joy of singing.
    Others along the way in college but more on that later.

    posted by Jim LeVasseur on 6-16-2009 at 7:19 pm

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