Best & Worst School Teachers

Who was yours and why do you remember them? Did they have an impact on your outlook that lasted?

Mine was: worst: depty head teacher - she hated me and the feelings were mutual. She made me feel insignificant when I returned to the school, after leaving, with the intention of telling her just what I thought of her - but I was too frightened

best: PE teacher - who turned me from average into reasonably good and gave me a life long pleasure in physical activities that led to me being told, when I was 47, that I had the metabolism of someone 20 years my junior! So, a huge thank you to you Miss Williams

Re: Best & Worst School Teachers

The worst teachers I had was for PE. I was never any good at sports, but there was this culture which said that if anyone wasn't any good at anything, they would be ignored, shouted at and just told to 'run around' out of the way somewhere and only those who were in teams of sorts would get the benefit of thier attention. We were never asked to get involved with tennis, rugby or any track games.

Because of this, my interest in sport vanished. I used to like riding my bike, but anything like football was 'shouted' out of me and I have had no interest in any sports since.

Re: Best & Worst School Teachers

At my school we had as separate lessons English history which was taught by a Mrs Rogers who I 'll never forget used to wear twin suits and one time she stood on a chair and while pretending to give a speech she raised her arm in the air to demonstrate a point and we all saw the huge safety pin in the side of her skirt, thought that was so funny,
and then we had English grammar which included literature and was taught by a Mr Lennon, and I loved going to his lessons he instilled in me a love of reading which has never left me
I didn't have any teachers I disliked either, only certain subjects, like maths

Re: Best & Worst School Teachers

The Best -- All my English teachers were wonderful - Mr. Bishop, who had been a conscientious objector during World War 1 and had joined the Canadian Army as an ambulance driver (so he could do his bit without killing anyone) and who had shared time as a POW with the US poet e e cummings (he of no capital letters or punctuation). Mr. Bishop made Chaucer exciting and I can still quote great chunks of his work; Tom Barnes - a handsome, saturnine figure who could reduce the hard cases to tears with a few well chosen words and who introduced me to the delights of Shakespeare and Conrad; and Alan Taylor who just instilled us with a hungry enthusiasm to learn - anything and everything.

The Worst - Mr Hickinbotham my Physics teacher - when I started in his class I was really enthusiastic about science. When I left his class I had lost all interest in it. Mr. Pape my geography teacher - not really his fault. He was a geographer not a teacher and didn't have a clue how to transmit his enthusiasm for his subject to his pupils. I have always had a great love for learning about the world around me, but Mr. Pape almost ruined it for me. His idea of a lesson was to say "Copy out Chapter 14 into your exercise books - when you've finished sit quietly till the end of the lesson". Finally my Religious Knowledge teacher, the magnificently named Dr. Llewellyn, Llewellyn, Davies. "Doc" as we called him had a bit of a gin problem which always worsened towards the end of term. By two weeks from the end of each term all pretence at lessons ceased, and "Doc" sat at the back of the classroom drinking G&T while we were supposed to watch appalling "modern" American religious films from the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago Illinois. I wasn't remotely religious to start with, but a couple of years of these evangelical films made me into a lifelong atheist.

Re: Best & Worst School Teachers

Best ever was my art teacher, Ernie Tindale, for 5 years in high school. I went on to study at the Ontario College of Art thanks to his influence.

Don't know that I'd label any teacher at the worst, but I had a falling-out with my grade 12 math teacher. I was creative in arriving at solutions in algebra, often got the right answer, defended my methods, but failed to win the marks expected. He accused me of copying off another student, which made no sense as the notations on my work were quite unlike anyone else's. I could work out a problem differently and solve it. Just couldn't get him to understand how I did it. Guess I'm wired up funny.

Re: Best & Worst School Teachers

All that I can remember really are my last school, apart from my teacher in Dale in Pembrokeshire when I was 8, probably the happiest of my life as a child.

My last school was in Muswell Hill, North London and we had a number of teachers who wouldn't have had a job these days.

Favouritism, Humiliation and Denigration was the theme for most of those "teachers" in my opinion, especially one Welshman who taught Maths who seemed to think singling me out and inferring I was a closet homosexual was amusing.
The PE teacher was into favouritism big time - also a Welshman and a bigot.
I liked sports but he soon quashed that.

I can't remember one of them that I actually liked and the deputy Head was a sadist.

Oh Happy Days! stevmk2

Re: Best & Worst School Teachers

Teachers are so important but I wonder if they realise how much. The most important quality of a teacher for me is communication. I had an Irish lady teacher to teach English, she had the gift of the gab - I was enthralled listening to her as she mixed stories with the teaching, looked forward to the lessons. The others, were dull and unable to sum up enthusiasm....

Re: Best & Worst School Teachers

My favorite was Mrs Grigg my English lit teacher ... she was fun encouraged to read out of my comfort zone and to write my own stories
She was an idividual in a school full of boring teachers ....

My least favorite was my sewing teacher who loved to show you up infront of everyone .... never taken to sewing after that.

Re: Best & Worst School Teachers

There ya go Bags, they have such influence on us and so they should - they 'are' important. Your English teacher sounds like mine, they bring the best out in you... For me it was the French teacher that was a negative influence, never took to French 'cos of her, she was also French.. Fortunately, never needed to - unlike yerself...

Re: Best & Worst School Teachers

I think that I must have been quite lucky with teachers, most of them were good exept perhaps for one we called Min; she was a vicar's wife,a very nice person, taught (?) English was totally ineffectual and luckily we moved on.

For praise I would single out my village primary school teacher, Mr Donaldson. Victorian building with outside toilets, he taught 3 classes in one large room. Get the picture? He kept us all in line and managed to get a few of us through the 11plus.

He sometimes arrived in a stinking temper and on those mornings you hoped that he wouldn't notice you.

Temper or no, he was an incredibly good teacher and worthy of an award.