<p>Who was the best teacher you ever had and why was he/she so great?</p>
<p>both 10th grade and 11th grade english teachers and my 10th grade geometry teacher.</p>
<p>10th english - great because he was the first teacher who told me I was an exceptional writer and actually helped me polish up my work. he also wrote me a killer recommendation for EPGY, which of course made me love him even more. :)</p>
<p>11th english - same deal. helped "nurture" (that sounds so sappy) and refine my writing skills. </p>
<p>10th math - I got an A in math. 'Nuff said. :D</p>
<p>8th grade geometry teacher. She taught the math and asked us to find ways to solve it before she gave the formula/theorum etc. As long as our method got the right answer, she didn't care what method it was. She also got me a 100 on the End-of-course :)</p>
<p>My 10th/11th/12th grade history teacher: I've had him for 10th grade World History, 11th grade American History, and then 12th grade Euro History AP. Him and I get along really well : he's republican, I'm democratic; we have wonderful political debates. I'm opinionated and not afraid to show it, which he likes. It's sad, my friends, him and I will sit in the senior hall during lunch if we're hanging out and talk about life. haha. He's a funny guy. One of those where you don't always understand his jokes, but the way he delivers it is funny (adding a dance or hand motions). I also learn a lot of things from him on both a world view and U.S. view. </p>
<p>My 10th/12th grade English teacher : I absolutely adore her. For those of you who read Harry Potter, she is my Dumbledore. I've always been able to go to her with problems and discuss them. She's kind of crazy, but very wise. I think she can tell the future, because she'll do something that will leave me wondering, and later on it all makes sense. I can also always go to her for help with my writing; she's wonderful. She made me a much more attentive reader during honors 10th grade. I'm happy I have her again for AP this year, she's so much fun. Yesterday we performed scenes from Shakespeare's As You Like It in the school courtyard. The day before that she had a friend come in who plays Renaissance music; she played a few Shakespeare play songs. It's a lot of fun, but she also pushes your reading/writing skills. </p>
<p>My Research Paper/Creative Writing (11th) teacher : he's also one of the supervisors for the school literary magazine that my friends and I started last year. He is glorious. He's another teacher I can go talk to about life and he's completely honest. A bunch of people go to him for relationship advice, and he tells it like it is from the guy's perspective. His class is a lot of fun, he creates awesome prompts for writing. He's an all around very creative guy. Even though I took his class last year, he's letting me do an Independent Study 2nd semester for creative writing - woot! We also share the same musical taste, so he's a wonderful music companion, haha.</p>
<p>my 11/12 grade physics teacher. He was nice, funny, and really knew his stuff. He cared about the students and was always willing to answer any questions anyone had about anything. </p>
<p>also, he does a lot of really cool projects throughout the year. A lot of my friends did stuff like build a robot, walk on water, and build giant catapults.</p>
<p>my 6th grade science teacher, she was sooooo hot</p>
<p>My 8th grade math teacher. By far the best teacher I've ever had. period. I loathed math until I had him for a teacher. He was the first teacher I ever had who made me have a passion for a subject I didn't like at all. He made math "click" for me, and that it wasn't something to be feared, but it's this amazing subject with all these possibilities. I've never had another teacher who's been able to light a fire and passion underneath me like he did. He's a big part of the reason why I do enjoy math today. :D</p>
<p>thank you, spydertennis...i guess rickoids do have all the fun....:rolleyes:</p>
<p>My 9th grade math teacher: He didn't focus so much on by-the-book processes and wasn't the kind that would sit at the board and for the entire period, write math problems and have us take notes. Rather, he had a combined approached to teaching us. </p>
<p>He would list things on the board for what we needed in our notebooks. and would include other important tidbits to be copied. He would identify key concepts from the sections/chapters and then provide for a few examples and have us do a similar problem in response - so it was sort've like a dialogue in teaching/learning. When we would correct problems, a student would mention a certain one and then another student would do it on the board for extra credit or something. </p>
<p>Quizzes and tests were periodic. It was a very flexible class and I learned a great deal. In one of the first times of my life, I was able to learn a textbook from cover to cover and I thought that was a great feat! (I know that sounds lame but I've gone and go to (a) mediocre schools.) </p>
<p>Also, he was very important in my learning maths. </p>
<p>My 9th grade Spanish teacher: She was incredibly enthusiastic about teaching and worked extremely hard to make sure my peers and I knew our information. She was often available after class for extra help and even encouraged pupils who were constantly on the mark, to advance through the rest of the book (our class was slighlty unbalanced in terms of work ethics and attitudes towards school). </p>
<p>It was a bit strange at first because she has a Jamaican accent and combined with her wild gesticulations and passion for the subject, a bit overwhelming too. So, in addtion to her teaching ability, she had quite a personality! </p>
<p>My 11th grade English teacher: Ah, later on, I would find out that she had won several teaching awards for raising test scores at the high-school she taught before mine... </p>
<p>Anyway, she realized how little we knew and tried to have us start from the beginning and build from there. We built on class discussions and observations and it was constantly engaging and everyone adored her for that. Highly approachable and one of the best teachers at the school and one of the best I've ever had, of course. </p>
<p>My 11th grade history teacher: Very smart woman. She knew what she was doing and working with. Constantly challenged everyone in class and was similar to the English teacher. </p>
<p>At any rate, I would put the two 9th grade teachers at the top of my list.</p>
<p>I like my 8th grade art teacher because she thought I was immensely talented(not to brag) and she taught us about these really really cool artists like Warhol and Hopper. Also, she has really really good taste in music; when we were painting or carving things she would turn on music and they would usually be the songs of Ben Harper of the Beatles. Also, I remember this one time when she gave a lecture and in the middle of it, she totally dissed Ashlee Simpson. Here was what she said:</p>
<p>teacher: ....and recently a musician was caught lipsyncing.
class: ASHLEE SIMPSON!!
teacher: I said a musician(emphasis on the word 'musician). </p>
<p>hahahaha it was REALLY funny.
Also, she gave me really good grades ( i think she was biased); my friend who was in Honors English got a C+ on a report on the biography of a particular artist, but I got an A+ and I was in regular English at that time. Lol.</p>
<p>My 10/11th English teacher (who is now my college counselor). She was just cool. It's because of her that I really got into writing - she gave me the confidence...said I was the best in the class even though she knew I thought I wasn't. She let me get away with a lot of stuff in my essays - I killed her in one paper, and in another one (where I was supposed to argue that I deserve an A), I had her character put into therapy. I loved that class.</p>
<p>My 7/8th grade Eng. teacher (same teacher both years)...She really helped me further develop my writing style...I don't know who else...Of course, there are a few other teachers I have had that I really liked...Kindergarten was horrible, though, as my teacher, who was around 80, was a real b*tch.</p>
<p>My freshman biology teacher - early thirties, full of energy, very organized, absolutely clear, will not take any type of BS from students, definitely somewhat difficult, has a good grasp of the subject matter BUT did not give unnecessary extra info that might confuse students, manages the class well. She was hard, yes, a bit rough, yes, but my favorite teacher nevertheless. Oh and she had graduated from Tufts U. </p>
<p>My 10th grade math teacher - close to thirty years of teaching (not old though, like 54), knows the subject in and out, clear in his explanations, answers all questions - always, ready to help, very fair, students don't take advantage of him, very respectful, tells awesome stories that don't get in the way of the curriculum, corny jokes but he knows they are corny so we just all laugh :)</p>
<p>My 11th grade bio II teacher- He is a teacher that I feel the closest to because I can pretty much talk to him about anything. I still come into the science office and talk to him when I'm stressed out or if something's on my mind. Whenever I felt like giving up, he was always there to keep me going. He makes everything that is going wrong, all better again. I don't know how to explain it.</p>
<p>my ap bio teacher, my bc calc teacher, my 11th grade english teacher. They all swindled students and wouldn't take **** from anyone. In their class, either u knew the answer, or ur ****ing retarded, and u better hope it's not the latter.</p>
<p>My AP Human Geography teacher. He knows how to challenge his students; he knews how to reward his students. He's clear and always, ALWAYS available to help - he told us to call him whenever we needed to. One time I didn't have my homework completley done because I didn't understand the question. He was like "you could have called to ask" and I said I had been busy and didn't start it until midnight and he said again "you could have called to ask." He's like that with everyone, and just an amazing teacher who made class so interesting. To be honest, he didn't mention the "test" a lot, but yet he completley prepared us for it. I thought he was crazy a LOT during the year. He'd make us take a 70 question test and write an essay in 50 minutes. He'd make us write three essays in a 50 minute time period. He'd make us take 150 questions in a 50 minute time period. We'd have a quiz on something that was not once mentioned in our book. We'd have to write about an event that we had never discussed and if we knew it, we knew about it randomly and not from that class. He'd never hurt our grades (he gave so many points back that I ended up with about 105%), yet people would still go insane because he taught it in such a way where we would feel as though we didn't know anything. Maybe that was the point. But when I took the AP test, I felt beyond prepared, particularly with time. I had time to write all the essays and go through them about three times. I went through the test about four times. And yes what I got a 5. </p>
<p>Once he took everyone who was interested to an after-school fieldtrip. He rented out a pizza place for everyone (maybe 20 students) and bought us all pizza and then we all went to a lecture at a community college. That's just the type of person he is. There is no separate life for him - his job is integrated with his life. One weekend about 10 students went to the library with him and we met his wife and kids and reviewed for the test together. I don't know, I've had some great teacher, but I don't think I've ever had one that came close to him. His class wasn't just inside the classroom - it was anywhere at any time. </p>
<p>After the AP test we did this project in groups of 3 about ANYTHING. My groups did sweatshops in China, another group did OPEC, another group made a baseball team and found a location for it based on numerous factors, another group did the diffusion of African music. Random, random things. Anyway, I remember every single project and facts about each of them. It was a brilliant project and I'm positive he knew what he was doing when assigning it. The only thing we were graded on during these projects was asking questions about other people's presentations, and that turned out to be extra credit. I feel like I got an incredibly well-rounded education from him, great, great teacher.</p>