I had a lot of teachers, as did anyone else who went through public school.
You have to admire teachers, especially if you've ever been a teacher yourself. Having the opportunity to home school my own children really left me with an understanding of how difficult it was to develop curriculum, and then try to teach it to children, who didn't always understand what you're trying to share.
Add to that the pressure of needing to perform to a certain standard with 20-30 kids at a time, so the school continues to receive funding and doesn't look back to the parents and community, and I don't know how we keep any teachers around, really.
Lots of my teachers were burning out when I got to them. Some of them flaming out. My drama teacher my senior year retired right after I graduated; she couldn't take it anymore. I had a health teacher who was seriously phoning it in, and did lots of weird stunts just for shock value, like eating chalk, and wearing his visor upside down and calling himself a finger. Only he didn't do it for laughs - he wasn't funny. He was serious.
When the teacher didn't enjoy their work, for whatever reason, the quality of that class seriously suffered. When the teacher was perpetually angry, then all of us suffered.
Since I was a good and serious student, as well as a quiet student, I got lucky, and got the best teachers my school system had to offer, and I usually sailed through difficult classes where other students crashed and burned.
I had three teachers in particular that I really felt like I thrived under their hand. So I'd say my three best teachers ever (or at least, up to this point) were:
#3 - Mr. Vicari, 7th and 8th grade, Academically Talented teacher, Garside High School, Las Vegas, NV, 1983-84
It always felt a little unfair to me that only the 'good' students got to take classes like AT, but we were the ones that could be trusted to let the teacher talk and teach, and I guess we had the grades to justify it, so there we were.
Mr. Vicari loved us. He was a big Italian-looking guy with bright eyes and a big smile - he looked a lot like Wheezy Waiter on YouTube. He was also pretty funny, so we laughed a lot in that class, and we got challenged a lot.
Some of what we did gave me lots of stress - riddles, drawing technical schematics and inventing things. I did the best I could with stuff like that, but never quite got it.
Then, there were the times like when we had to memorize a poem by John Milton. Not only did I have that thing memorized, and recited it as required without fail, I can still recite it, on demand, even today, with feeling, many decades later.
One project in particular stands out in my memory. We did a project where we had to learn first aid, and practice administering it to each other.
Now, if you've ever tried to teach a bunch of pre-teens how to bandage each other while the other one is pretending to die...Mr. Vicari must have regretted it as soon as we started doing it, but it was the most awkward and hilarious thing ever. Laughing so hard we were crying. I couldn't see to apply the tourniquet to my friend Christine's leg, and watching her try to do triage on Tyler and blushing bright red because Tyler's only the cutest boy in class - I will remember it til I die.
#2 - Mrs. Eldfrick, choir teacher, 9th and 10th grade, Bonanza High School, Las Vegas, NV, 1985-86
She was a short, brown-haired lady who wore brown all the time, like a wren, but a real powerhouse behind the piano. She was in her element in that music, and worked us sooooo hard. Singing madrigals at 6:30am was magical, and show choir (we were called 'Starfire' - Vegas is a show town after all) was terrifying, but we strove to live up to her expectations.
Our Christmas choir season I'll never forget - what it was like to be on a bus, and one person starts singing, and suddenly everyone joins in, perfect harmony. Then we did it again at the mall, after the concert. And again at the Christmas party. A beautiful feeling of unity.
I remember her tiny feet stomping in time to the music, flapping her arms like a chicken, when she really got excited about what she was hearing. She never seemed to get tired, ever. I really didn't enjoy the rehearsal process after awhile, but I stayed for her energy and for the great group dynamic I got to be a part of through her.
My next choir teacher in Bowie, MD, just couldn't compare, so I left choir in my senior year.
#1 - Mr. Burns, English teacher, 11th grade, Bowie High School, Bowie, MD, 1987
The thing about Mr. Burns - he was a small man, balding with glasses. He wore Mr. Rogers clothes, and he looked and acted a lot like Mr. Noodle's brother Mr. Noodle from Sesame Street.
But he loved English literature, and particularly Emily Dickinson with a passion. She herself might have looked up from her garden in Amherst, feeling the energy of his love for her, and vowed to continue her poetry just for him.
He loved us too - you could just tell. He never got angry or yelled - he didn't have to. He talked to us and treated us like people, not like numbers. You really felt like he cared about each person he talked to. He was a teacher because he wanted to be one.
He even danced for us - we once watched a movie he liked called 'Berenice Bobs Her Hair'. It was set in the 1920s, and he demonstrated the dancing they were doing - little kick here, little kick there. It was so perfectly him, and I cracked up. Couldn't help it.
That year coincided with a great renaissance myself of my own love for literature, and I read a lot of Emily Dickinson's work on my own that year, because of him. I'd even made a plan to pitch a one-woman show for next year's school Fall production - the life of Emily Dickinson - with myself in the role, in the hopes that he would get to see it. I knew he would love it.
He'd agreed to write me a letter of recommendation for my college applications that next year, and I was looking forward to the possibilities of senior year so much...until I saw the sign in front of the school three weeks before school started.
'Edward Burns - 1935-1987'
He'd had a heart attack and died over the summer. I felt selfish for even thinking about my college recommendation letter, but I did. Never forgot him, though. We weren't close personally; I was too shy for that. But I always felt he was a kindred spirit.
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