Teachers who had an impact on your life

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    In my 19 years in the public education system, I must have had 20+ teachers, some I barely remember and some whom I credit for the person I have become today.


    In elementary school we had one teacher for all subjects for the whole 5 years. She was an old style teacher but she gave us a solid foundation. She retired after our cohort and was often criticized by parents for her old fashioned values - they complained she gave too many homework and their children needed to attend soccer practice in the afternoon! She is still alive and was a spinster until after she retired. She found a husband, a widower, and moved to another city. However, he became ill and eventually died. His family accused my teacher of being an opportunist (apparently, he was quite wealthy - but herself she lead a very modest life and had no vices, so I am sure she wasn't after his money) and she decided to renounce to her inheritance. She burned bridges with her acquired family and came back to live in her family apartment in our town, amidst a storm of gossip. She is still alive!


    I loved my high school philosophy teacher - she was so knowledgeable and well spoken.

    Our teacher of Italian and Latin literature was also quite peculiar, always wore a tie and looked like a true intellectual, lost in his thoughts. He had a witty sense of humor but could also be strict and pragmatical.

    The teacher that influenced my life the most was my math and physic teacher. I choose to enroll in the engineering course at the university because of her. She piqued my interest with her explanations of physics and I thought I had found my call. Why didn't I study physics, then? I wasn't sure what opportunities I would have had with a degree in physics, so I went for engineering, which I considered 'applied physics'. She had skin cancer and went on a sick leave before we could graduate from high school. I wanted to meet her to thank her for helping me decide my future educational step, but she died when I was a freshman. I still think about her quite often and I have fond memory of her classes.


    Who was your favorite teacher? And who influenced you the most?

    There were a notable three:


    • George Membrez - History - As an insecure 10th grader, he gave me confidence in myself and allowed me to laugh
    • Mrs. Ford - 10th-grade algebra - She made me feel good about myself-- I mattered and felt love and kindness from her
    • Buddy Lake - Not a teacher in the public sense, but one who made a drastic difference in my feelings of self-worth. What a wonderful and brilliant man... and a friend, indeed

    These folks gave me a positive sense of self that I couldn't have gotten anywhere else. (Certainly not from my family.)


    May God bless all these people. They changed my life. I hope they know how grateful I am.


    There were others who have helped me along the way but not to this extent,


    Richard

    Looking back, I can see the impact several important individual teachers had on my life, and with the perspective of time, I can also appreciate the collective effect all of them had, in the forms of appreciation of the soaring aspects of art and music; respect for the lessons of history; admiration of the precision of math and physics; development of analytical thinking through chemistry and philosophy; and the opening of whole new worlds in the form of literature.


    As a graduate student suffering through teaching chemistry labs to university undergraduates, I quickly developed great appreciation for teachers, and knew that I myself could never be a teacher. Teachers have a dual task: maximizing the growth of students who are open to learning while dragging along those who stubbornly refuse to learn anything. What an exhausting job!

    Although no teacher had any impact on my life many ordinary individuals did. When I was a kid Sergeant Adair who lived across the road from us always stopped for a chat whenever he passed by with his alsation dog by his side. A very nice man who left me with a very good impression of the Police force that has stayed with me since. His wife, son and daughter were all lovely people as well.

    Then there's the many people I worked beside who impacted my life much more than teachers.

  • serafina

    Changed the title of the thread from “Teachers that had in impact on your life” to “Teachers who had an impact on your life”.