General Discussion

so im a lab tech for a microbiology course and i love the professor, hes so great. he keeps food in one of the freezers (one with no biological material or anything like that) and i dont have time for lunch most days, so he generally allows me to get a snack when i dont have work to do. the course itself seems really fun, im actually learning a lot too! its not just notes and papers 24/7, we do a heck of a lot of actual experiments, including one recent one about water samples and whether or not the sample was safe enough to drink, according to the E. Coli count. hes just a cool dude with a cool class, i absolutely love being the tech.

id also say my econ teacher was really cool. my high school was adamant about not letting me change my name in the system, even though i had parent permission and my friend had been able to do it way before me. my econ teacher doug came up to me one day early in the semester and asked why i had my birth name in the system, and i told him about the counseling office's constant denying my requests. it turns out he was actually the school board's advocate for trans kids, and he gave me a name change form (that, mind you, didnt even require a parent signature, just mine and his). my hs years were pretty crappy bc of how unaccepting the whole town was, but he definitely was the nicest on campus. his class was also really fun, it wasnt all boring econ info. generally if something big was happening in the world we would just cover that and never really had a strict lesson plan or anything like that.

My high school art teacher, whom I first took in my sophomore year, was a super nice and supportive guy and really encouraged me.

He taught digital art as well as traditional, so he had a big stack of old Wacom Bamboo Pen and Intuos 3 tablets for classroom use. He let me borrow one of the Pens for the school year so I could learn how to draw on a tablet. At the end of the year I came up to him to return it and he said I could keep it. So thank you, Mr. Jewell, for giving me my gateway into digital art.

Back in high school, I has a Spanish teacher from Panama who had the best turn to her there ever was. She was a ball of sass and wouldn't put up with bull of any kind, to the point that I remember her standing up to my bullies for me a couple of times. And, when she realized that I was from a poor family and had to do without, she started slipping me money so that I could afford to eat during the day. I loved her, she was an amazing woman.

In college, I had a professor who taught printmaking, drawing, and sculpture. I was actually his TA. He was old enough to retire, had been around the block a few times, and had seen and done everything you could think of. He had lots of fun stories about the '60s, disasters with previous students, and always had a quip about a situation. Weird sense of humor, really weird guy all around. Very encouraging, though. It's a shame that everyone thought he was just some senile old man who couldn't remember anything, because he seriously had a better head on his shoulders than they gave him credit for.

And he made sure I got through the worst semester of my life. Turns out he had bipolar disorder, too. Encouraged me to get help and even cut me some slack while my brain was adjusting to my meds.

my 9th grade english and 10th grade writing teacher. shes forever gonna be my inspiration!
she taught in an amazing way that engaged everyone, and she even helped me (i speak veryyy rarely) participate sometimes! she completely recognized how i felt and gauged my comfort level and helped me gradually try new things. she also thought it would be neat to write letters to and from eachother, which we did for nearly a year and now seeing as im not in her class anymore, we send emails :)
she always would compliment my art and encouraged doodling on papers to the class, as she said it helped creativity flow and i totally agree with it. she also would have us talk about things that werent strictly in line with what we were doing in class like current issues and stuff that loosely related. i enjoyed that- sticking 100% to a 200 year old text doesnt sound too fun!
she helps her students in so many ways. in class one day she noticed a girl was upset and helped her out really well, it impressed me and made me feel really happy. she was like my counselor, and i trust her with my life. more than anyone else really- i think that trust is really important when it comes to teaching
she holds little activities and things to do with her classes, like she took my class to the movies after reading the book the movie was based on- sometimes she would surprise us with little gifts that would make our day too. they werent extravagant or anything, like for example she got me little samurai stickers because she knows i want to go to japan :)
shes just a really amazing person haha, i could go on but im ranbling by now heh

So I'm in my country's equivalent of college, studying to become a nurse. Part of the studies are simulation classes. In those classes teachers set up a simulated situation that could come our way once we become full-fledged nurses. 1-3 students are chosen to play the part of nurses, and need to deal with whatever situation they get to the best of their ability. The rest of the students are watching the simulation in another room, and make notes of what happens and how it should be dealt with.

It's supposed to be a stress-free way of preparing for sudden situations that may arise at any moment, and I can definitely see the good intentions and thoughts behind it... But I have never met a student that enjoys them. It's actually terrible and stressful, especially for any introverts like I am. Usually the "patient" in these situations is a doll that shows no emotions besides blinking mechanically every now and then. You can't believe how quickly you forget everything you've ever learned when you need to diagnose and treat a doll that's showing absolutely nothing.
But the worst part is just knowing that in the other room the rest of the class is watching your every move and listening to your every word. It's torture. My class is in general very friendly and supportive and I get along with everyone, and all of us know how terrible it is to be in a simulation... But it never gets any easier to deal with.

Anyway, that's my rant on simulations. Now for the best teacher ever award that goes to the one teacher who seems to have found the magic formula for how these stupid simulations should be handled so that no-one feels stupid, awkward or stressed out. This absolute unit has completely ditched the creepy dolls and always features himself as the patient. It's much easier to actually react to a live human, especially when said human plays his role very convincingly. He even painted his face red for the one where he was pretending to have an allergic reaction. He gives clever hints when the "nurses" hit a wall and helps them forward. He constantly stresses that these simulations aren't meant for nitpicking or finding things wrong with the performance, it's for learning new things. Nothing wrong with not knowing everything, we're all here to learn and have fun doing so. And he doesn't teach us just to do x thing, he teaches us WHY we should do x thing. After every simulation he breaks the situation down and explains what exactly was happening with the patient and how we should react to certain things.

This man is the only man who gets me volunteering to do a simulation, and I'm so sad he doesn't teach more classes to us.

My drawing teacher was by far my favorite, he was so funny and actually cared about his students, and he would show everyone else someone's work and flaunt it all over the place to give them attention, and just?? he was a good teacher and he encouraged me to actually go out and show people my work
theres also my fifth grade teacher, who's the whole reason I'm still writing today

My fourth-grade teacher was the best I've ever had.

In general, she was an amazing teacher, but what made her special was how supportive she was of me and understood what was going on while my mom was getting chemo/getting surgery/recovering from cancer, and was really kind, and I'll never forget her for that.

She also had her daughter sneak her dog, a big ol black lab, to school (we were in the outdoor classrooms so it wasn't super hard) and she let us play with him.

so in conclusion, Mrs. Pruden, a 10/10 teacher

my 2nd grade teacher- she was so awesome. I even remember her now. She didn't get mad at me for reading under my desk during class. She brought me a whole box of books because I was bored with the ones that she had.

She even brought her steel drum into class (haha, yes, she played the steel drum in a band) and let us lil kids bang on it.

I mean, what more can a kid ask for?

school is a blur for me no one really stood out...
I kept my head down with my nose in a book the whole time.

But if I had to say who stands out as having taught me something worth remembering it would be from anime and my ex :)