Jim Heffernan wrote an interesting blog on "battle-axe" teachers. I sent him the following response.
Thanks for your blog on battle-axe teachers.
But our education took all kinds.
My favorite battle-axe was my 10A and 12th grade English teacher, Miss Palmer at West High School in Cleveland. I remember her most for her teaching of Shakespeare. She taught Julius Caesar in tenth grade and Hamlet and Macbeth in 12th grade. I really got to appreciate Shakespeare because she first had us read an act at a time and then a few scenes at a time. We had to memorize passages but the really high point was looking at the pieces as a whole.
She also lived a block or two from me and would drive me to school occasionally and would pay me to mow her lawn. Maybe that softened my attitude toward her. But then when one of our classmates decided to go into the Army, she kept him waiting at her locked classroom door until she was good and ready to sign the necessary permissions. I thought she was being unfair.
On the opposite end were the teachers who had high expectations of their students and expressed deep regret when students went outside their expectations. I remember twice disappointing my geometry teacher when I accepted a challenge to break a pencil on my geometry book and went through to page 70 or so and when I idly used a compass to draw circles on my desk. She just couldn’t believe I would do such a thing.
One of my regrets in life is not keeping contact with such important influences on my life.
