I was filling out a group of standard internet security questions and the one that is almost always front and center stood out to me.
What is the name of your favorite teacher?
Of all the milestones we remember in our lives our favorite teacher is almost always a part of it.
Teachers shape futures.
When I was studying engineering my teacher was a hard, no-nonsense, by-the-book, German engineer named Rudy Ströebel. Herr Ströebel demanded I memorize the resistor color codes, formulas I would need, and schematic symbols and their meanings before he would begin teaching me. This was not a good way to absorb learning but, none the less, I wanted desperately to know and understand all he knew. The deal was made and off to studying, I went.
He wasn’t my favorite teacher though I owe Herr Ströebel much. Without his patience and guidance, I would not be who I am today.
Teachers shape lives.
My favorite was my 4th-grade teacher. I was her pet student and every afternoon at the close of school she would let me carry her books and stacks of paper to the car—a brand new pink Caddilac with an electrically operated trunk—as futuristic to me as a flying saucer. With a nervous finger, I would press the trunk button under the massive steering wheel and up popped the trunk. It was pure science fiction. I loved that electric trunk and the teacher who let me operate it.
Whether teachers are from our past or in our future, they are wonderfully gifted, generous people the world needs more of.
To our teachers.
