Hey Pandas, Which Teacher Had A Lasting Impact On Your Life? (Closed)

When I was in the 3rd grade I was hit by a truck while riding a motorized scooter. I was in the hospital for a couple months and missed out on a lot of school. I was out of school for so long I was told I’d have to repeat 3rd grade again. Well my teacher actually came to my house and home schooled me. My grandfather offered to pay her extra for her time but she refused. She ended up being my 4th grade teacher also! We are still really close to this day! Whenever I go back to my home town I visit her at my old elementary school where she still works. I still have a little angel bear she gave me after my accident. Her kindness will stay with me always and I’m so grateful for all that she did for me!

As a kid I wasn't very bright and I was held back in the second grade. but I will never forget the time I told my teacher that I couldn't read and she smiled and said. " yes you can." one of the first people to actually believe in me when I never did.

Okay I have 3 (sorry, if you don't want to read it all, just scroll past)
1) My 7th grade math teacher who was also my volleyball coach, she wasn't really all that nice until volleyball season started, i got put on her team and she was a completely different person, instead of yelling all the time and being generally mean and strict, she was smiling and the only time she yelled was when she yelled "YEAAAAAAH! GOOD JOB!" when one of the people on the team hit the ball or served a good serve, and she was so encouraging and i learned a lot from her, and she boosted my self esteem a lot
2) My 7th grade social studies teacher, we had the BEST relationship, he joked around a lot with me, like purposefully leaving me out of stuff then watching me to see if I noticed (which I didn't always do lol), and moving me to the back of the classroom so he "didn't have to listen to me talk and talk and talk", and he was generally a funny, sarcastic guy (like me!!!) who was probably one of my favorite people on this planet and greatly affected my personality for the better
3) My 7th grade ELA and CharacterStrong (which is basically just a mix of leadership and learning about feelings and love and stuff) teacher, he was so nice and chill, and he played guitar so every day we came into the class he would play a quiet song on the guitar to help us relax, then we did a breathing exercise every start of class, and he never turned the lights on, he had dim lamps and fairy lights instead so it was calmer and easier to focus in his room. He always apologized for having kids who were in his ELA class, CharacterStrong class, AND homeroom because we had to see him 3 times in a row for class, and once he taught orchestra so 4 times, but what we told him every time is that we do not mind at ALL seeing him multiple times a day. And he had a personal connection with every student, and he was basically like a therapist. He helped me learn how to relax myself when my anxiety gets really hard to handle and how to find motivation when I just feel like crap and don't want to do anything, and that will stick with me for a long time.
If you read all that, kudos to you, thanks, I appreciate it

Ms. Tomlinson, my 7th-grade world history teacher. The GSA was held in her classroom that year and she had a rainbow flag in her classroom. I had a lot of queer friends at the time but because of the way my parents were I still had some internalized homophobia. Most of my friends went to GSA at lunch so I decided to go. And that's when I realized I was definitely not straight or cis. Thanks to her I finally found myself because she told me I should come to GSA at lunch. She was also my favorite teacher, the absolute nicest and best human on the face of the earth. She moved to Spain to teach English the next year and I was so sad and so was everyone else. I hope she's doing well.

As sad as it may sound, no teacher left a lasting impact on my life. Don't get me wrong, I've learned a lot from them, and they've been very useful, but I've never had that idealistic master-pupil relationship with anyone. I envy those that did, and it's really interesting and awe-inspiring to see such relationships, but I chose another path.

I've had both negative and positive experiences:

Negative - I had a string of bad chemistry teachers in high school. I've never been a fan of it since, I've even changed majors just to avoid it.

Positive - while there are bad ones, I've had the joy of having two university professors who were so engaging that you would want to go to class and want to go to every laboratory exercise. One of whom became a mentor figure and basically is the reason I'm on my current path today. It is a wonderful experience to work with someone who is open to sharing their knowledge and experiences when so many out there are not (trust me, it's more than you think).

My 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Welling made a lasting impact on my life. She increased my love for learning, and saved it too! During 3rd grade, my love for learning was kicked out of me by Mrs. Polhaus* :(>.

* I don't think I spelled that right, but I don't care.

My 8th grade english teacher. Granted, I'm no longer in 8th grade, I'm a sophomore, but I still hang out in his room all the time and help him after school. This is how he helped me: I was going through a really rough patch in my life. My father was abusive (mentally and physically) and my mom was in no shape to help me through the pain. So, that led to me *TRIGGER* cutting my wrists. It went on for about 4 months, then my mom found out and I quit. Well, it had been about 10 months, we had left my father at this point. Things were going okay. I was recovering. Then, my mom and step dad had gotten into an argument, ya know just a regular married life disagreement and it hit me too hard and I started cutting again. I told my teacher, Mr. C, and he talked me through things and helped me find a counselor that would talk to me weekly. Mr. C literally saved my life.

my GRADE 5 TEACHER TOLD US (and showed is a very informational textbook with A LOT of pictures) HOW BABIES ARE MADE.

My 4th grade teacher and my lovely 6th grade Geography teacher

So in the 6th grade I had trouble with long division. My Mom was able to help me with it, and I had no further problems. But ever after I was told I was bad at math.
I had zero diffculty with 7th grade math.
Due to a very good teacher.
Comes to 8th grade math. One section, I could not grasp it no matter how my teacher explained it. Instead of failing me, he gave me extra work in the form of numbers that I had to figure the square roots . We had just finished that section.
He kept giving me longer and longer numbers, until by the end of that section they were too cumbersome for me to finish.
His kindness was phenomenal.
9th grade math, first day idiot teacher puts an equation on the board. I ask what it all means. His reply? " it doesn't matter, just memorize it" Nope nope nope nope nope!
I will Never forget that. I think I only passed the class because he didn't want a failure on his record.
Freshnan year of college, I took scuba diving. Lots of math and tests Every week.
Math is essential to survival. I knew all the parts of the equations. Never missed a single one on any tests.
Changed colleges. Had to take a math class. There was a special math class just for liberal arts majors. Because they recognized that some people just think differently. And so need to be taught differently. Am grateful to all the good math teachers out there.

I have two but neither were my teacher. My son's 3rd grade teacher introduced him to the Special Olympics and gave me more tools to help my son. My daughter's preschool teacher helped my daughter interact with the world and gave me hope when at one time I never thought I would hear her say 'momma' or truly play. Both teachers gave my children a door into the world when they were both trapped in their own.

I went to a medium sized Catholic high school in OH. The freshman advanced geometry teacher was also the math department chair, AP Calculus teacher and NHS advisor. I *loved* math, and was an enthusiastic student, but this woman just ground my gears. A big part of our weekly grades in her classes were these posters we had to make illustrating a concept from class. She graded you in part on the look... graphic design, in a math class.

She also was a huge stickler on arbitrary rules. Deadlines were to the minute, no exceptions. Wanting to avoid her notoriously rigid AP Calc class, and wanting to get some college cred, I took the Calc series at my local community college, which also let me take more advanced courses than the HS provided. She was cold to me all of senior year, partly because she wanted me in class for the interaction with my friends that took her class. I'll give her that, she did care about the actual teaching.

Still, she aggravates me to 20 years on. She did teach me that you will just have to deal some with rule-crazy, arbitrary jerks in love with the system they perpetuate, and who relish their own authority.

Sure, I've had many inspiring teachers that made me excited to learn and discover, and I wish I could give them a shout out here, but man, that mean-spirited math lady left a mark.

My 6th grade math teacher. I was behind in 6th grade, because I didn't focus much in school math in 5th (I went to a Saturday math class that allowed me to skip a grade. I started with 50's and ended with high 80's. That's why I wasn't killed for 5th). My school has different math levels. Most kids get into Compacted, the one I'm in. It's the middle level and you learn a year in advance. Both the highest (Accelerated) and Compacted intentionally make the math class super difficult in 6th to drop as many students as possible. Passing average is an 85 and in the beginning, I was scraping low 70's. I fought hard to raise my average. This teacher was hated by so many kids in the class (I had the bad class). They accused her of teaching the lesson wrong (which she only did twice and cleared up confusion the next day when she found her mistake) and making them fail the test (which was like far away from both occasions). They blamed her so much for showing favoritism (she only did so because I, along with 5 or 6 other kids, were the only people not disrupting the class and giving it our all), that she quit at the end of the year. She was the reason that I was getting high 90's at the end of the year. She pushed me past my original limits and helped me be better equipped to go catch my dream job.

Mrs. Castagnola, wherever you are, I love you so much and thank you for being my 6th grade math teacher.

my 4th grade teacher let us grow (almost) whatever plant we wanted. some people grew vegetables or herbs and could eat it during break time. I grew a Venus Flytrap named bug soup. Plus the teacher was super nice.

my public speaking and hs101 teacher. he’s one of the few that actually cares about people. you can always tell when the teachers are there just for the money or when the teachers are there for the money but they care about the job and the impact they make on people. he doesn’t bs people and he doesn’t believe in busywork. he actually understands the high school experience and wants the best for people. he’s also the football coach, but he watches every high school sports game he can make it to. he used to be an english teacher as well. i’m not sure how to express it but he just really cares, and we share a lot of opinions on the same things regarding the education system. especially how english teachers often ruin reading for people. i hope i can play a game of golf with him this summer, because he’s really just a great guy.

He honestly saved my life. had a tick bite and didnt notice, but he did. He was also really funny and sarcastic

My current fifth grade teacher. She is amazing and I feel like she truly understands how I feel and act. :)

So idk if this counts as a lasting impact because it was only last year, but this one was a big deal for me.
My 6th grade teacher (I'm in 7th now)
Was always very kind and sweet to me. We had a lot of similar interests. I didn't have many if any close friends so during recess I would sit in her classroom and either read or talk with her. I had developed some pretty severe anxiety for a number of reasons. I hadn't told my parents yet, but I just felt comfortable with her. I told her everything. I spilled my guts to her. That was the best decision of my life. She encouraged me to tell my parents, and I did. Shortly after, we went into quarantine. I kept up with her via email for a few months, and eventually, via text. I finally went back to in person school about a month ago. You can not believe how happy I was to get to see her again.
Because of her, my anxiety isn't gone, but it's 85% better. I also grew in my religion (Christianity) because of her.
Thanks Ms. Zoesch 🥰

My DET teacher. She was kind but fair and one of the few teachers that could keep my crazy class in control. We often chatted after class.I loved DET and she is one of the reasons i went into product designing.