My favorite math teacher from high school passed away yesterday. He went to my church. He made math fun. And it takes a great teacher to make Advanced Algebra and Trigonometry fun.
He taught me how to fold a sweater in under 3 seconds. I wore his everyday because his room was cold.
He used to threaten to turn all the lights off and run around the room if we didn't settle down.
He'd play with people when they fell asleep.
He was a teacher that inspired other people to be teachers.
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Bless him and all the other great teachers. So essential, and so underpaid,generally. Ward Churchill might not fit in that generalization, even though he was fired. Or any of the convicted ones. Or the ones hitting on their students. Okay, so the generalization has a lot of holes, but I'm sticking with it.
Well, you said great teachers - and convicted teachers or pedophiles don't fit that description, IMHO. :)
He was underpaid. He developed a board game to teach kids math and received some minute amount for the idea.
He solved some sort of unsolvable equation once. And he taught high school math.
I was lucky when I went to high school. I had at least 3-4 teachers every year who were brilliant and made learning fun. The year after I graduated they all got to retire.
You're very lucky. My fondest memories include clashing With Father Fat Fk, calling a teacher bozo to her face, taking human sexuality with a guy that looked like Gargamel with braces, and the grueling experience of My Tenth grade teacher's Chinese torture grammar.... or is it grammar Chinese torture... YEAGGHHHH.
Jokes aside though, there's nothing quite like having the luck of the Irish in the teacher draw. I had a Lit. teacher that not only inspired me to be the best student possible BUT she said Epic tales like Beowulf were awesome because they were the precursors to Lord of The Rings and Star Wars. If that's not inspiration, then that's fine but I was sure as hell motivated to read.
I think it takes just one. I was getting my degree in education and one of my professors said that most people become teachers because they have one they love and want to inspire people like they were or they had one they hated and they wanted to make sure other kids didn't go through that.
I had both. In the 3rd grade. She made me cry every day, so I was EXTREMELY thankful for all the great ones I managed to have in high school.
Luckily it only takes ones to inspire people to be better.