<p>I remember the stellar and awful teachers my kids and and tend to have the rest blur. D had a teacher who gave her an “F” in home ec because she was ill with the strep throat when the pillow was due and the teacher wouldn’t return my call about whether I had to leave work to go and get the pillow and turn it in for her or it was OK for her to bring it on Monday when the MD cleared her to return to school. She also had a teacher who accused her of plagiarism because she was stunned by D’s good writing and extensive vocabulary (she later apologized but D was highly offended). D also had a teacher for gifted and talented that made the kids cry EVERY DAY! D begged the principal to allow her to drop out of the class because she found it too upsetting. She had some teachers who really cared about her and were excellent, who helped her keep her perspective.</p>
<p>S had a teacher who was so angry at him for innocently asking questions she couldn’t answer that for 2 years, she pretended he was invisible and refused to call him even when he was the only one with his hand up in class. She also took the class on evening field trips and had no idea where they 12-14 year old kids were (this could be as late as 11 or midnite). He had a teacher who insisted he should be a whiz at creative writing because he had great SAT scores on reading comprehension! </p>
<p>He did have some excellent teachers, though, whom he really enjoyed and still thinks fondly of to this day. One encouraged him and his friends to build a functioning skeleton with just popsicle sticks, string and tape and learn all the bones and everything anatomical. He also had them build planetariums and watch the sky and had S in charge of teaching everyone in the school to use the scanner and had S put together the yearbook for the school, in 6th grade! He had a AP physics teacher for 2 years that would allow him & the other kids to hang out in the classroom when they wanted and fed them–popcorn, pizza and other snacks. The teacher was often tapped to write letters of recommendation and put a LOT of effort into it & his students did VERY well in admissions.</p>