To want to know if you had a nice teacher growing up

[JustYouAndMeNow]

70's and 80's schooling. I have to say that many of my teachers in the late seventies were absolute psychopaths looking back..and the rest..but there was one female English teacher in my second secondary school who tried so hard to reach out to me.
She encouraged me to write and would ask me what was wrong (even though she was seen as a strict teacher) I didn't appreciate it at the time and definitely couldn't articulate what was wrong but I have never forgotten her.
The only two final exams I turned up for in secondary school were English Language and English literature.
Did you have a good one ?

I had some cracking teachers, and I'd love to thank them but I'm ancient and I expect most of them have died by now.

I had a brilliant Latin teacher, who gave me a love of classics that is still with me 50-odd years later, a wonderful English teacher who got me doing drama which, with hindsight, probably stopped me going completely off the rails, and an art teacher who was brave enough to take whole classloads of teenage girls up to London to go to exhibitions and explained paintings wonderfully. I'm also grateful to a history teacher who was fantastic at putting history into a political and social context and making sense of stuff that I would otherwise have found duller than ditchwater.

I just wish I'd appreciated them more at the time.

Just to add, the teacher was religious and we had Scripture lessons every week. (Never had this with any other teacher, it wasn't a faith school.) We also prayed every day. I remember doing creative writing and loving making up stories and poems. A lot of my primary school teachers just worked through text books, but this teacher seemed to put her heart and soul into it. So I remember so much from that year.

I am facebook friends with my fabulous science teacher (and gudiance teacher). She is now 93 and posts every day about her porridge, her washing, her carers, her taost and strawberry jam, the birds in her garden, the kindness of her dustbin men.

Despite her age, limitations, physical problems, she is overwhelmingly positive and full of gratitude for life and everyone in it.

When I grow older I want to be her!

I had more lovely teachers than not.
My home life was difficult because we were poor and single parented so it was always cold etc at home but school was safe, with warm, friendly teachers.

I did have one in Year 6 who was very moody. Mrs Simpson she was called, she literally hit my friend (who had been moved into my class a year early because he was so bright) across the back of the head in a rage and I remember him standing outside the classroom crying his eyes out.

I suppose because I had unpredictable adults around me at home, I knew how to read the mood of the moodier ones and stay under their radars.

I was an immature summer born and often accused of bad behaviour as a very young child. I would never have questioned whether the teacher was horrible and would always just have assumed I was bad/naughty/ in the wrong.

I think that ^ is the difference between children in the 80s and now.

Reception - excellent, new teacher full of lots of ideas
Y1 Bit wet and didn't really teach us much, but certainly not horrible.
Y2 Excellent, warm-hearted type
Y3 Sarcastic and old school, but good. I learned to do arithmetic properly.
Y4 Nice enough if unremarkable.
Y5 Another slightly sarcastic, but decent.
Y6 Job share. One was nice enough. One was full of ideas and probably my most memorable teacher and made the second half of that year much better than it could have been.

Pretty good on the whole!

Mr Nixon, world's best story teller. He gave everyone a nickname, sharpened pencils for you with a pocket knife, put on a cracking school play each year and drew magnifying glasses over my schoolwork when my writing got too tiny.

My A level history teacher was amazing. A brilliant mind and very interesting to listen to. I suffered with ME/CFS and also mental ill health due to complex trauma and this lady was very supportive at a time when many others (parents and other teachers) weren't .

I didn't have a 'nice' teacher throughout school. Left as early as I could.

If anyone knows a Miss Crittenden who lived in Tolworth in the 70s and taught in Carshalton. Thank you Miss Crittenden

I voted YABU to indicate that, 'no', I didn't have a nice teacher who connected with me on a personal level at school. I was very shy, quiet and reticent but a good performer in exams and schoolwork (which back in the 70s and 80s was rote learning). I'm on the ASD spectrum and maybe this is why I felt unable to connect with any teacher. But it's sad as my home life was abusive and neglectful and as an academic thinker, school could have been so much more for me than just a forum for being bullied and having to spend my time hiding out.

Primary in the 80s, I look back on one or two fondly. But on reflection, they never protected me from being bullied mercilessly. So not really.

Secondary 90's, Quite few nice ones (nice, not great) I can't say any of them particularly inspired me. Quite a few nasty bully teachers in there. And one very sleazy teacher who was always putting his arms round the girls. He had an affair with and married an ex pupil as soon as she was old enough. She was accepted in the school community and would help out at xmas fayres etc. 18 and married to a teacher in his 50s. Then he got another pupil pregnant, she had a termination, it was all kept quite. He worked there until retirement. Horrific looking back and I can't believe there wasn't an uproar from the teachers and parents.

My grade 4 teacher hated me and picked on me all year as did my chemistry teacher in grade 11. However my elementary school principal (who was hated by almost all the other children) was very kind and caring to me. She talked to me about my problems at home. I also had a few teachers in junior high that I really liked.