Best professors/teachers you ever had?

[Telume]

Sup Misc? Now that I'm on the cusp of graduating for Miami-Dade College and on my merry way to FIU via transfer. I look back on my experiences at MDC and remember some very good teachers I had. So I ask you Misc, who was the best professor/teacher you ever had? Uni level preferred, but I'll take grade school teachers as well.

[ChobiChibi]

Throughout University (and school in general), I've had two very different types of teacher/teaching. The classroom teacher or lecturer, and the one to one instrumental/vocal teacher. Experiences of the two are so different, but picking a favourite is easy.

Instrumentally, my clarinet teacher that I had in college was the best I'd ever had. My university teacher was so busy with her own solo career and the students that were better than me that she didn't really seem to want to give her all to teaching me. Especially when I decided to do a vocal dissertation rather than an instrumental one. Instrumentally, I find it easier to learn when I'm being told how I should be learning, rather than being told that I have to know something, which is why my college teacher was so good. She taught me how to practice, something no one else had, which is really important when you get to a more advanced level of performance. I wish I'd had her for more than a year, and I hate Canada for stealing her away from the UK :/

My most recent singing teacher is my favourite. I've not had many singing teachers. I'd had one-offs with some people if something big was coming up (a friend of mine gave me a few lessons last summer before an exam. She gave a new perspective on my singing that my undergrad teacher just seemed to be overlooking), but never any lessons in succession before I started at university. He has the same taste in music as me, he tells me things about my voice and the way that I'm singing that my previous teacher wouldn't have bothered to. And I appreciate his honesty. I'm not so much a perfectionist when it comes to performance, so long as I've done a good job it doesn't have to be 100% correct, so when he gives me criticism about having gone wrong, I appreciate it and can take it and move on.

Lecturers is a whole different story. At the moment, the maximum number of people in a class is 4, whereas in my first year some of them reached 100... I've gotta say though, I'm loving the close relationship we get with the lecturers this year. It makes discussions so much easier and more fun, and with a small class size it actually makes me want to work...

Anyway, back to listening to this interview and writing it all down... *scribe*

[Blademaster]

Mrs. Connelly, who due to budget or layoff issues of some kind was somehow my teacher in third grade AND fifth grade AND seventh grade.

She was probably the most chill teacher I had. Before college, I mean. But I don't really remember anybody from college, while her full name is still in my head. Says something, I guess...

[mattbcl]

In both high school and college, I had a teacher / professor by the name of Dr. McGinley. I would consider him a truly extraordinary man because despite a vigorous battle with cancer, he never missed a day of work that I can recall, and made sure we understood our material (his specialties were U.S. history and government) before moving on, no matter how long it took him to hammer it in.

And as an aside, in grade school there was Mr. Pantages, who left his mark by being boisterous, tolerating absolutely no clowning around, and barking at us all when even one of us did poorly. His standards were high, and he expected us to meet them because he'd done his homework on us and knew our capabilities. He didn't believe there was such a thing as a lost cause in his classroom.

[Perfect Chaos]

Holy shit Telume, you live like right next to me o_O

Lives in Pembroke Pines/Miramar

My Algebra I/II teacher from high school. Everyone who had her for a teacher absolutely loved her. She was awesome at her job and as a person. Always had a ton of fun hanging out in her classroom with others during lunch hour. Lots of fun times that I miss from before.

[Cferra]

Generally, my Political Science professors were the best. They were funny, insightful and turned the sometimes dull classes where we talked about politics into funny discussions. Keep in mind, that I was also in college after the Monica Lewinski scandal and the first run of Dubya's presidency. They were great because they were kind and considerate, too. I didn't have much of an issue with any of them.

However, my favorite teacher in high school, I didn't really have in class. His name was Mr. Rhaodes and he was my cross country coach. He taught at the school, too. Social Studies if I remember correctly. He taught me a great deal more than any of the teachers at the school did. There were others that were close. But, Rhoades was the kind of guy who just connected with the teenage mind a lot better than the others.

Creepiest teacher I ever had was my third grade teacher. Frizzy blond hair, nine inch nails, insane clownish makeup...also on her teeth. AND an unhealthy obsession with my dad's supra.

[Telume]

Holy shit Telume, you live like right next to me o_O

Lives in Pembroke Pines/Miramar

My Algebra I/II teacher from high school. Everyone who had her for a teacher absolutely loved her. She was awesome at her job and as a person. Always had a ton of fun hanging out in her classroom with others during lunch hour. Lots of fun times that I miss from before.

I live about an hour south of you in Miami. But if you've ever attended classes at MDC North Campus, we may have passed each other without knowing. On topic: My favorite teacher has to be my 9th grade English teacher, Mr. DeNight (or did it have a K, I can't remember). In any case, he was awesome and he really wanted you to pass. He gave his ALL to helping you if you were defficient in English. Not to mention, he's the ONLY teacher I know that actually made reading Shakespeare interesting for me.

[Jeff]

I had the craziest physics professor at UMBC. Crazy in a good way. His lectures were always fun to sit though. The tests he gave us never had numbers on them, he always used variables, so we didn't need a calculator. And speaking of his tests, apparently, whenever he came up with one, he would drink a bottle of wine and then attempt it, and if he was able to do it drunk, he knew we could do it.