It really is hard to pick just one. Especially when I pretty much liked all my teachers. The ones running through my head seem to all have in common that they challenged me. Either they had high expectations for their classes or they inspired me to do more than the minimum or in some cases even gave me extra/alternate assignments to better fit my needs.

One of my favorite teachers was Mr. Iqbal. He taught Social Studies and World History to underachievers in 7th grade. Everyone knew there was an honor's History program you could get into if you were smart, but this fellow taught those who didn't achieve that standard. I didn't make the cut for the Honors program, mostly because I didn't know it existed and my parents didn't either, and everyone who was not in honors had absolutely no interest in history.

I think Mr Iqbal was from Bangladesh or Pakistan. He was older, short, bald, had a timid quiet mannerism, and brown skin. He may have been Islamic, but he didn't make it the focus of the class.

I remember sitting in his class and really wanting to do well, and how no one else in the class cared at all. I remember everyone thinking he was mean and difficult and hard. I always did the best in classes where the teacher was considered hard. Whenever he asked a question, my hand shot into the air. I remember I did a report on a guy named Akbar from India. Mostly because I thought it would be something he liked. And during that year, I asked for a world globe for Christmas, so that I could learn ALL the countries and their capital cities.

After the class was over, he recommended me for the Honor's program. I didn't do that well in that class. Most of the kids had already figured out the system, and like most of my adolescent life, I didn't have a clue. I remember once being assigned a report to write in Honors American History in which we were to write about who fired the first shot in Lexington. I had forgotten the assignment altogether, and hadn't read the historical materials. The whole class wrote about the disciplined English troops, and the anxiety of the collonial forces, and how obviously the first shot was probably some farmer whose gun went off... I wrote that I thought the British fired the first shot because those who fire the first shot in a war would lose. I had remembered something along those lines from the Book of Mormon so the whole question just seemed ridiculous. I was not familiar with academic nuances or high-minded scholarship... I still think the British did it, though there's no strong evidence to support my claim. :)

--Ray

I have a couple of people that I would refer to as my favorite teachers. They all seemed to have a few things in common. One was that they were tough but fair. Their classes were not easy and they expected high performance. They also were interesting people. Also, they seemed to enjoy what they were doing and actually care about their students.

The first would be my number 1 all time favorite would have to be Coach Unzueta. He taught Spanish and was my cross country and track coach. I really did not find much about highschool that I liked. I would never go back and do it over again. I loved running though and Coach's Spanish class was hard for me but I learned a lot. He basically became my mentor in highschool. He was a conservative Christain, veteran of the Marine Corps in Vietnam, served in the National Guard, and native Californian. He loved His Country, The Duke, USC, oldies music, and running. He took us under his wing and ran us until we couldn't run anymore. We didn't want to dissapoint him. I still like to run although I run a lot slower now and can't do more than a few miles at a time. He made highschool liveable. I learned so much not just about running and spanish but about life and hard work from Coach Unzueta whom we affectionately referred to as "The Gunny".

The second would be Mr. Nunez. Mr. Nunez taught when my dad when he was in high school. The man was a genius and could have given Ken Jennings a run for his money. We constantly encouraged him to go on Jeaprody but he would just smile. He taught U.S. Government and his class was the most challenging class I had in high school. He had weekly quizzes that rivaled anything I saw in college. But he made the subject of Political Science and History come alive. It was one of those classes that when I got an A, I felt like I had crawled through glass and fire to earn it. His class was so challenging that when I took Polysci in college it was not nearly as hard, in fact I used notes from his class to study for my college Polysci tests. When other college kids were really struggling I didn't because of Mr. Nunez. Even those who got lower grades generally liked the guy because he was genuine. He reminds me a lot of the math teacher from the show "The Wonder Years" that worked with Kevin Arnold. Dry, hard, expected a lot, but was fair.

There were a couple in college that really stood out for me. The first was Mrs. Coe. She was an instructor in the Business School. I had her for two classes and she was also my coach on the business policy team. She was tough and expected a lot but she also was very willing to work with students. She was very available for after hours help. She had won a car on wheel of fortune and was legendary in the business school. I respected her more than most of the other instructors because she had real world experience and was straight up in her assessments. If you were wrong, she did not sugar coat it. She used red ink to correct our assignments. When we took second at the World Finals of the Business Policy Competition, she let us know that our performance merited us winning first and not the other team. We believed it because this woman never pulled punches when it came to performance.

The other college prof was Doctor Victor Panico. He passed away a year or so after I graduated. He was a former Marine and taught in the Business School. He looked and sounded a little like Rodney Dangerfield would when Dangerfield wasn't telling jokes. His class was tough but the man was a genious. He worked us hard but made his class so interesting. He seemed to really enjoy what he was doing and took an interest in us. When I was in my last semester I visited him for some advice and he really took the time to help me. When we talked it was like I was talking with someone not unlike my own grandfather who had passed away when I was a boy. He was old school. He was a former member of the Toastmasters and would give us tips on speaking and tell us about ways to improve ourselves when speaking to groups or in job interviews. He didn't have to do that but he took the time to. He was one of the good ones.

There were a couple of others in college in highschool but I can't remember their names. I wrote a letter to Coach Unzueta a year or two ago and thanked him for being such a great influence on my life. Once in a while I drop and email to Mrs. Coe and see how she is doing. She remembers me still which is amazinging considering the number of students that go through her university classes.

I can't think of one teacher who I have this same regard for that I would say was easy or who tried to make the class just entertaining. I guess the challenge was a part of their appeal to me. They were entertaining in their own way but so were so many others. It went beyond the basic job description for these folks.

Update:  I thought of one more from college that I overlooked initially, probably because it was outside my major.  I took a European History class from Dr. Bohnstadt.  Dr. Bohnstadt was an older gentleman.  His class was very hard.  His essay tests were very intense.  The history he taught in this class was from the fuedal period up to the 1960s.  He went beyond the standard lectures and actually got us engaged in the topic.  When we learned about the industrial revolution we read Dicken's Hard Times.  Then he had us take on certain characters and debate how our view of the times in the book and our character's outlook on life during the time period.  Probably the thing that puts Dr. Bohnstadt over the top was his own story.  His father and family fled Germany when Hitler came to power.  His father could see what so many could not see as National Socialism started to be impossed.  Dr. Bohnstadt was a boy when they left.  They first went to south America then imigrated to the U.S.  When he was old enough he joined the army and prepaired to get shipped overseas to fight in WWII.  He became a U.S. citizen while in the army and the war ended before he saw any action.  Because he spoke German, he was assigned as a teacher to unindoctrinate the German after the war.  He had classes of adults who he basically deprogrammed.

This all came out because we started asking those questions that generations after the war still ask.  How could the Holocaust happen, how did the German people let this happen, etc.  He never volunteered or bragged about his past but answered our questions.  Soon the class turned into a full on interview as we asked this man questions about his life and the times he lived in.  It was like getting to meet someone who had witnessed the great events of history.  It wasn't just a story in a book any longer.  I remember asking him if the German people knew what was going on to the Jews.  He told us about his army assignment and that he believed about 1/3 knew about the final solution, 1/3 had heard about it but didn't believe it or refused to believe it, and then 1/3 or so who didn't have a clue.  He told us how his German "students" asked him questions and he answered them.  Of interest was how he told of being questioned by the Germans about how the U.S. could side with the Soviets.  He was told by the students that as bad as Germany had been the Soviets were much worse.  It almost proved prophetic as Stalin killed untold numbers in Russian during his reign.  I learned more about history in this class than any other I had taken up to this point.  I still have some of my essay test from this class.  I kept them because I got A's on them.  They mean as much to me as a trophy or medal that I won in crosscountry.  On a couple essay questions he even wrote positive words about my answer.  He rarely did this.  It was like winning first place in a marathon to get something like that written on an essay from Dr. Bohnstadt.

-- Edited by salesortonscom at 11:37, 2007-06-15

Thanks for the comments, friends.

One comment element I noticed is that we liked the teachers who were "hard"--the ones who set high expectations for us.

Research in education shows that students achieve higher academically when the teacher sets high expectations. Yeah, that deserves a "Duh," but I'm continually surprised by the number of teachers who dumb down the curriculum because they think the students can't handle it.

-- Edited by Roper at 21:15, 2007-06-25