I was listening to the radio the other day and a DJ was talking about how his entire life he was told that he was stupid. His parents and teachers always told him it was in his genes to not do well in school. Needless to say he did horribly in school leading up to him paying someone to take his SAT. When he got into college however he made the Dean's List every year. Was it because he was at a school where if you were there then you must be smart? Was it because all of those influences over him were erased and he could finally find confidence in himself? This also happened to me with math. I could never understand it but when I got to college I had a wonderful teacher. She taught me the things that no one else took the time to do because 'math just wasn't my thing'. Since then math is easy for me and I even became a tutor in that class. Do you have any thoughts on this or stories you would like to share?

i agree completely that a teacher can make or break a subject for students. i had a terrible math teacher that made us all feel stupid, and i did terribly in that class. i had never LOVED math, but i didn't hate it yet, and that teacher taught me to hate it. after that, even when i understood everything, i still hated being in math classes.

and the opposite goes for chemistry. it was so so so hard for me, but i had an incredibly helpful, caring, wonderful teacher who knew when i was trying my hardest and when i was slacking off, and she would pressure me to work harder when i was slacking and comfort me when she knew i was doing all i could. at the end of that year, i decided to take ap chemistry the next year, it was the hardest class i've ever taken in my whole life, but i passed the ap and haven't had to take a science class since because of the credit i received. it was really a confidence booster to do well in such a hard classs.

i've always wanted to be a teacher for just that reason though, i want to be better than all those teachers who failed me and i want to try and be as good as all those who made such an impact on my life.

Sometimes I do not think that teachers understand how important they are in a student's life. Most students,whether they realize it or not, care about their teacher's opinion of them. In some cases children see their teachers more than their parents. These reasons give teachers a great amount of responsibility in respecting and "properly educating" their students. It is really sad that there are Bad or Unenlightened teachers out there.