Did you have one that stood out, good or bad?

My eighth grade algebra teacher, Mr. Ledoux, burned me in front of class in a way that I felt betrayed. As a result it was many years before I saw the subject as anything other than something to survive so other goals could be reached.

Somehow I wound up with a doctorate in the subject.

For me 2 squared was my grandparents in the back of the 56 Buick, so yeah, that's where math lost it's appeal for me.

My college Trig and Calculus teacher. She was one, smoking Cuban.

Funny, all my college math professors were women. All my Jr. High and High School math teachers were male. Now that I think about it, all my Literature teachers in college were male and just the opposite in the younger years.

Weird.

Jim Mueller at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. I had him for my second quarter of calculus (1981 his first quarter teaching), differential equations and an experimental graduate course he put together, perturbations. I used his office hours to help with some of my physics and engineering courses. A Cal Tech PHD and just an outstanding professor in every way and a crazy good fiddle player that would join us around the fire at beach parties playing away. From the university website.

Mueller, Jim

Ph.D. California Institute of Technology
Interests: Applied mathematics, asymptotic analysis, singular perturbation theory

I think the one I had was one o'them weird people.

He was a genius, but his facial expression never changed.

He whupped my ass with one of them damn planks that they called a paddle in Kentucky one time for skippin' class,.....his facial expression never altered. It was like getting paddled by one of them stone heads on Easter Island.

I thought about killin' him,......kinda hated to take it that far.

Thanks for your good work mathman, Perhaps you can teach me advanced algebra someday, not that I'll have any use for it.

Yes. Mr. Robert Lee. My 8th grade math teacher. Was a Marine in the late 30's on into WWIl. Was stationed at the London Barracks during the blitz. Talked about being able to go on board the HMS Prince of Wales after its return from the battle Of the Denmark Strait and before its ill-fated transfer to the Pacific.

He was a man of immense knowledge on a wide variety of subjects.

Math teacher in high school wanted you to think.
Not just....... Regurgitate what he said.
If you thought of a proof in a way he didn’t....
Extra points and an atta Boy
Got a NY state Regents Diploma in Math because of him.
Went to college in Kentucky and tested into 2nd semester sophomore Math.

Did a proof and it was wrong......because it wasn’t regurgitated....

I asked was it true......yes. But do it my way. Got an A but learned little.

Be it a Steak, motorcycle, lover or teacher ........once you’ve had a great one.......you know the difference

Mr Contreras did me a great favor by flunking me in geometry - then explaining that I lacked the background to succeed. (LOUSY algebra teacher). I re-took algebra in summer school, then re-took geometry (95% avg), then trig (93% avg) from Mr Emmons - a Bataan vet (the typical sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, and gaunt build) - who could make math come alive!
Those two led me to the math dept at the local university.

Mark? Was the Bataan vet one of the New Mexico NG coastal artillery survivors?

Small high school, graduating class of 45 students.

Carl Proshceck, taught Geometry (sophomore year), Algebra II (junior year), Math Anaysis and Physics (senior year).

7'th grade and 8'th grade math, and Freshman Algebra 1 were taught by a sub human idiot.

But good old Mr. Proshceck was a gift from God to any student hungry to learn. His geometry class taught me more about critical thinking than any other experience in my life. Even though I scored 100% throughout that senior course of "Math Analysis". I really have no idea what it was about. Sure wasn't Trig, as I was wholey unprepared for Freshman Calc in College. Withdrawing from calc four weeks into the first semester was the end of my math experience.

My best math teacher was a lady by the name of Kathy Stover. Had her for Algebra II as a junior in high school. She was the one and only good math teacher I had. I took Calculus l,II, and III as well as ordinary differential equations in my undergrad years. I am now in graduate school for a Masters in Chemical engineering and am learning about partial differential equations as well as tensor mathematics on my own. I'm really enjoying it and in the Internet age, what with YouTube and other online resources I am starting to feel like I am actually learning mathematics for the first time since my junior year in high school.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that truly good and inspiring math teachers are as rare as hens teeth. If you've had a truly good teacher count your blessings.

Back in the 60's, Calc III at my college was taught by an old guy with a theory. Every class of 100 students will have 1 or 2 extra brights students who can do it no matter how hard it is. The theory was that if they could do it, the other 98 were sloughing off. He taught to those 1 or 2. His tests were incredibly difficult. The engineering students were having to take the class up to 3 times to pass so they could get on with their engineering subjects. He was tenured, of course, but the school finally busted him to teaching remedial math for no credit until they could force him to retire early. I didn't need the class so I dropped it at midterm. At the time, I was way below passing but I was in the top 1/3 of the class.

I had two math teachers that made a serious difference.

One was 8th grade. I was the new kid in school and he saw me falling in with bad influences. We had 3 groups that took all their classes together. I don't know why he did it, didn't know him, don't know why he cared, but he moved me from the "B" group to the "A" group and ... it changed my history. In hindsight probably one of the most significant events of my life.

The other was my high school math teacher. He was a friend's dad.. He was hot headed, probably would have gotten fired today, but he had passion for math and knack for showing how to apply it to real world problems. I only took 1 math class NOT from him in 4 years. 2 years after I graduated he stopped teaching high school and went back for his PhD at the same university I was attending. It was interesting to connect on a different level.

I could say much the same about my high school biology and chemistry teachers in slightly different contexts.

My math teacher taught me how to count up to 20 without taking off my shoes!

Had one other great Marh teacher. Ma Burton. In the 60's she drove a 912 Porsche.

Senior year and I'm taking 3 periods of math. One was what they called Bonehead math. The class you took if you only took one math class in your entire High School career. Real basic.

She wanted to know what I was doing there. " I need practice in arithmetic. " she understood.

Mainly MotorHeads. So she started with gear ratios.......she had their attention.

Then cubic displacement. And she explained WHY. And they knew they could ask questions and not get put down. She wouldn't repeat it again. She would take a different slant. Till they got it.

Now she had given them confidence and they trusted her. She taught them things they could use.

By the end of rhe year she got some of them thinking about the odds in different card games.

One kid was rabid about it. Suddenly the advanced math probability course kids were asking him questions.........

Anyway. The 912.......she is leaving school one day in line and behind a bus. She hears brakes squeal behind her and rams the bus in front of her.

Cops ask WTF!!???!!

She points to the scratched hood......."Body Work...."

Points to the undamaged rear...."You know a good Porsche mechanic within 50 miles?"

Enough said. Grand Lady.

I had a similar experience. Had a high school algebra teacher that couldn't pound it into my head. I dreaded that class more than anything. In college, I needed more math, and signed up for a basic algebra with trepidation...but whizzed through with straight A's. Went right up through calculus from there without a hitch.

I do believe it was the teacher, but don't hold anything against the guy.

As a Freshman, I helped most of the guys on the football team pass Geometry... I was always pretty good in math...

Our High School, was too big and short on teachers in math... so I never got to take Calc or Trig..

you were assigned by lottery... and it seemed everyone who wanted to take it, didn't get picked for it..
and everyone who wanted to avoid it like the plague, ended up getting assigned to it via the lottery..
and they wouldn't allow us to trade spots...

This was Fairfax County VA, right next to Arlington County.

So instead I took 6 levels of Algebra.. Level 3 and 4 during my junior year..
and level 5 and 6 my Senior Year.,...

it was the advanced math group I was assigned to... our Teacher was Col. Lundberg
a retired Army Colonel.. WW 2 and Korean War Vet along with the very early years
of Vietnam....like 58 to 62. Was a Green Beret over there...

When Col Lundberg came to our High School, he had just retired from the Army...
His last assignment for the last 6 or 7 years of his career was teaching Math at West Point.
and had been in the Army just a hair over 30 years...

He was from Minnesota, but his daughter lived in Fairfax County, her husband in the military
and stationed at the Pentagon...

A real active guy, he didn't feel like retiring.. so he got a high school teaching job...

Guy had no patience for the hippie types, but we had a lot of military kids in our school..
so that was the students he liked to teach...he could take complicated subjects and make
them pretty easy to understand...was a wonderful and outstanding teacher...

and pretty well respected...

My wife was a HS math teacher for 37 years, for the 30 years we have been married she has also taught summer school and tutored during the school year. Now retired for 3 years she continues to tutor and substitute teach, this provides us with a nice income to suplement social security. She uses the money to pay for home improvements, going out to eat and to the movies and to help our two grown daughters. The talent for math was passed on to our oldest daughter who graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in accounting, completing a 5 year program in 4 years. She recently passed her CPA exam and is in her fifth year with one of the biggest accounting firms in town. I struggled with math in school and was a C student at best, when I matured and went back to college in my mid 20's math made more sense to me and I was an A student then and in math courses I took in later years. Most of the courses I took alter on were math that applied to my job and were easier to understand because I was applying the material nearly every day on the job.

My wife's math teacher was probably one of the worst ever. I heard stories from everybody about him, but never had to take anything from him due to having transferred to the school in between freshman and sophomore years and already having the one required math class out of the way. He was the poster child for why you need to take classes in how to teach as opposed to just trying to teach a class on stuff you know a lot about. He knew math inside and out but was a total failure at imparting it, let alone controlling a bunch of kids.

I had a bitch for a math teacher in junior high. I pissed her off somehow and she booted me from beginning algebra into a general math class with a bunch of stoners that actually smoked dope in class. The teacher was this nutcase who was a nice enough lady but had no control over the class and all the rejects got put in there. It was the credit that got me past the aforementioned teacher though.

So then I had NO knowledge of algebra entering college. I had a wonderful College Algebra teacher that got me through it with a "B". He's got a house right next to one we own in town and is a great neighbor. IOW I never see or have any interaction with him. I did see him at the gunshop a few years back. He's a hunter and fisherman.

my senior high math teacher helped save our family home in 1964. Hurricane Dora was bearing down on Jacksonville. We lived on Cedar Creek, which flowed into the St. Johns river. I called him and he helped me through the calculations to determine the slope of the front yard, and to calculate how high to stack the sand bags. He was spot on, and the water did not get into our house.

Math is stupid.






Travis

I was horrible at math in high school I had a teacher who figured I was a lost cause he just let me sit there clueless, didn’t really attempt explain it to me.... at the time kind of funny, but now not so funny.. anyhow best math teacher I ever had my wife she is a math wizard. She helped me get ready for the asvab test and helps me when taking college math classes. My daughter has picked that up from her mom, she has 4.14 GPA in high school.

After 2 semesters of college calculus, I had no idea what it was used for. They didn't teach that. It was just a bunch of limits and stuff that didn't make sense. Years later, I was considering going back for another degree in engineering and I knew I'd have to bone up because I had to take the 3d semester of calc. A friend taught business at our local JC. A book salesman had given him a sample book of business calculus and he gave it to me. Click. Lights on. The book was almost entirely practical examples of calculus in use in the real world. Suddenly it all made sense. Why don't teachers use practical examples of this stuff? Seeing math in action makes a HUGE difference sometimes.

Spot on Rock.

I had an algebra teacher who was incompetent and I damn near flunked. The rest of my math schooling was easy after him.

I had an engineering teacher for a short stint who was a genius teacher. He'd come in early lay out a complex circuit on the board and when we showed up he would give us points on the circuit and list the specific numbers he wanted and leave. It never took less than a whole day to do the analysis and it took the entire class of twenty some students working in concert to get it done. The last day of the class he presented the subject matter of the class and a test which everyone aced. He understood that the basic prep he put us through was the hard part and once that was in place his course work was simple and evident.

I'd have taken any course work he offered on any engineering studies without a question. Out of all the teachers I ever had, he was so far and away ten time any other. What he gave us carried the group through a very difficult year and made the rest easy. He taught us how to derive a method to solve hideously complex problems and know the process involved was taking us to the solution.

I do not even remember his name. Like the rest of the group I was so focused on what the next thing he was going to throw at us would be and how it would connect to the course work.

I absolutely sucked at math. The only time i ever figured it all out was when i was finally allowed to take geometry! Everything fell into place. Aced it!



Algebra, I still feel is the work of Lucifer!!!!

Math was a hoop I jumped through to get to the paper I wanted.

I really do not care for it. I can use it in a sense rudimentary - Figured fractions, use the 3/4/5 rule (yes I know a^2 + b^2 = c^2) etc.

I actually enjoyed Stats in college tho I don't really remember much of it.

Math and higher math especially seems to be one of those things that if you don't use it a lot - you just don't seem to retain it. At least I don't.

I had two math teachers of note, the first was HS geometry. Mr. Aho (real name). He was a 70 s lounge singer and used his stage wardrobe in class, and taught by reading the book in an overly dramatic way that would make William Shatner proud. Didn’t learn much from him. The other wound up getting fired for getting a 17 year old student pregnant and wound up marrying her when she graduated. If you got him talking about sailing, you didn’t have to do math that day. I ran into him later when I was substitute teaching, he’d found a job in another district. These guys led to me having the same thoughts about calculus as Rocky, which is why I’m not an engineer.

Old70

Years back, I looked up some our our old teachers. The "bad", my judgement, teachers left teaching soon after we had them just out of collage. That may have been a blessing for all.

My 7th and 8th grade math teacher was a little old woman, about 5 foot tall, but she was good. Freshman high school algebra teacher was a young single male teacher who put all the cute girls in the front seats, and only taught to them. I was failing, until our neighbor agreed to tutor me, and helped me pass. The rest of high school math teachers were not memorable, and I hated math anyway. College trig was one of the hardest classes I ever had, and I failed it. Took it over, and had a wonderful instructor named Miss McReynolds, who actually took the time to explain it. I passed it that time, but still hate math.

My father was a machinist, and made sure to teach me math before I learned it in school. THe first math teacher I had who knew more about the subject than I did was a chain smoking hippie fella who taught at the local vocational school where I took a drafting class after high school. I learned quite a bit from him.

Math was about the only subject in school I thought I'd ever have a use for. I also liked it because it had steadfast rules, and there was only a right or wrong answer.

My 9th grade math teacher was the fellow who was supposed to teach me algebra. I was hopelessly befuddled from Day One, and went home frustrated to tears that I couldn't figure out how to do my homework. For some reason my dad was home that night instead of out on a oil well, so he sat down with me and tried to make sense of this "new math". (Remember "new math"? It was like Old Math, except more cuddly and made less sense...) Anyways, dad called my math teacher at home and talked about how the man was approaching the subject. They were on the phone a long time as I recall, talking about math and politics and so forth. Then Dad came back to my room and sat me down and in about 10 minutes explained the fundamentals of algebra to me. The light was turned on and never turned off.

When I went back to school the next day it was like a new world had been opened to me. My math teacher continued to teach on the foundation he and my dad had started, and I think to this day he was the best schoolteacher who ever taught me math.

But my best math teacher was my father.

I had a math teacher in hs who was almost deaf...hearing aids and I don't think they worked very well. and was hopeless. Super nice guy but no idea how to teach and didn't know math very well either. Used to have a couple of the girls show him how to do a problem now and then because he couldn't figure it out. I never did learn it. I regret it because if I had gotten the hang of it I could have stayed in college and gotten a hell of a lot better jobs.

High school teachers are required to take a number teaching courses to learn how to teach. Some of them don't get it, though. OTOH, college teachers are hired for their proficiency in the subject. Teaching is an art and they often don't know it. A brilliant mathematician might well be completely unable to get the simplest idea across to his students for lack of teaching skills.

I went to high school in a rural community, 41 students in my class. Math teacher was a pleasant middle aged woman, a great teacher but all business in class. If you were doing athletics there were a lot of times the bus would have to leave early for the away games or meets, causing the jocks to miss class. Mrs. M was fine with that, but you were responsible to get your assignments or tests made up AHEAD of the regular class.

Senior year math was analytical geometry and intro to calculus and she expected a lot out of her students. There was only four of us guys that dared to sign up. It was tough, but we covered a lot of material and learned a lot. Lots of individual time if you needed it.

She gave us 4 dudes our final exam a day before finals were supposed to start. On "finals" day she went over the exam and gave us our grades for the semester, it only took a few minutes. Good-I have a few minutes to study for other classes I had tests in that day!

Wrong! Mrs. M surprised us and says no, we're staying right here! She set out a pie and cookies she had baked for us. A pitcher of sweet tea and a deck of cards. "You guys have worked really hard this year and I'm very proud of you. But for the next 45 minutes we're going to have fun."

And it was fun. We played a game of pitch while she kept our glasses and plates full. College math classes were a breeze for me. I made it a point thank her a few years later.

ah math. had a wonderful algebra teacher. he kept me laughing and having fun the entire time. had a geometry teacher that about sunk my young arse. he lasted one year, and went to sellin' trailers to the soldiers down at ft. benning.

on to junior college, to a stat. teacher that couldn't hardly speak of word of english, having emigrated from korea. a horror story. later, grad. statistics was much easier.

qm (quantitative methods) was not easy, but a definite challenge, and the prof had business world experience, so he made it all seem real enough.

I always had a mental block when it came to math, and had no outstanding teachers on the subject. On the other hand I did some in-depth,post graduate "studies" with a Sociology grad student that used to teach a class I was in...


Suffice it to say I learned a LOT......

That sword cuts the other way too. Education majors are often lacking deep knowledge of the subject area.

If someone aspires to be a HS math teacher then they ought to study the subject at the bachelor's level (at least) as if they were a math major. This should include rigorous, theorem proving courses in linear algebra, higher geometry and advanced calculus along with a good dose of probability and statistics. Once a solid understanding of the core material is achieved then move on to the teaching/classroom methodology, say at the EdM level.

Now we're talking real teachers. All of my English teachers were older or men.

My junior year in HS they hired a new math teacher just out of college and she was hot in my mind (and in other minds too). She always had the nicest smile when I walked into class. Nothing big about the smile that others might notice but it was very noticeable to me. She was actually from a small town about 35 miles from where I lived and went to school. My senior year she was my college prep math teacher and one day when we bumped into each other in a store in my hometown and had a casual conversation, she quietly hinted at some private tutoring if I was interested. Being young and adventuresome, I thought about it for a week maybe, and I bit. Her parents had a cabin about half way between her old home town and mine, so it was very easy to get away for some very private tutoring sessions without being noticed, and she did have a way of teaching that left memories.

After I graduated, she would make occasional weekend trips to where I was going to college (4 hours away) to insure that I hadn't lost any skills. Damn...!! That lasted most of my Freshman year until I started to get close to a girl at college, so I called off the visits. At the time I worried a bit about how she might react in total, but it all went smoothly. She later married some guy a few years older than her and her life moved on.

I suppose I should have gotten counseling at the time, but I just moved on in life with a smile on my face and an A in college calculus. I never took notes during the counseling sessions and I definitely never told anyone about it until years later at a HS class reunion. No one seemed to have had a clue, not even my best friend from HS who thought I just went rabbit hunting by myself a lot on Saturday afternoons.

I do not know if my college environment is typical of larger universities and state schools. I attended a small private college in Idaho. The school's charter limited it to a student body of 600. And the college's claim to fame was an extremely high placement ratio into medical, dental, and veternary schools.

This college also turned out a lot of teachers. Lots of students graduated with a minor in education, "just in case". I have my doubts that young men and women who took up teaching just because they could not find placement in their chosen profession made the best teachers.
I personally know of one who found his way into my child's school. And he was about the worst teacher in the district.

after reading these posts, it comes to mind my teachers often discussed the origin of the numbers. one thought that the romans were involved. and others felt strongly the arabs gave us the Zero. i don't know if that's true or not? but other's suggest other answers. at any rate, thank goodness for the math teachers.

Great story Doc. You were very fortunate to have a teacher that was willing to approach the teaching of mathematics in a different way-most in my experience were pretty set in their ways ,honestly. I think as an engineer or at the time an engineering major, you either have or will have a pragmatic approach to mathematics and not so much a theoretical one. I learned more about calculus, differential equations, and others in my chemical engineering courses.

The most outstanding thing among my math teachers was their opinion of themselves. Most of them pretty high strung and most of them pretty useless...... I got along fine in everything but geometry and Trig. I could memorize enough to pass, but never really have understood it. Statistics bedevils me, but I understand it enough to use it.

My last math teacher was in linear algebra in grad school (prereq for statistics), and it was the easiest, most natural, most coherent math I've ever taken, and the prof was mellow and concentrated on teaching, rather than on the material.

I learned more math from old gunsmiths i hung around with, and more english, especially grammar, in German class!

it's all theory. every ounce of it, unless you believe there's some actual truths there. some can learn & understand & accept theories of any and all kinds. others have more difficulty. my wife, a math major will make papers fly all over the room when she can't get a theorem to work out. but sooner or later, it submits, and all is well & good, once again.

math is not for everyone. in my school, mostly the boys excelled, but there'd be a few girls who came along and put the shame on all the boys. a few could shoot too.

Gus, certainly the foundations of mathematics are theoretical, no argument there. Point I was trying to make is that some people can learn better from practical examples, myself being one of those. That's not to say that a pragmatic approach is the best; but it can be useful, especially to somebody in engineering or the applied sciences. Now, if I was a math major, or math teacher I I would appreciate a more theoretical approach.

Funny. My math and English teachers are Sikh. They could barley communicate
because of their accents. It's was a chore trying to understand.

is it just the accent or they can't communicate ?

I am going through the math dilemma, homework crap with my son. He doesn't like it.

I hope I can get him to figure it out.

I got flunked out in high school because it was just rubbish,had no real world use.
I was doing training in auto mech at the time.

Had to have the credits to get out of jail so took night school.

Understood everything because the teacher made it work in real life.

Now the english lit. teacher i had was older that the hills and the depths that they came from.

Ms Adams was her name and after her throwing my term paper in the trash,i left her standing there stomping her feet hollering for me to come back to her class.
I went to the office and talked to the head man and told him if i had to go back to her class i would drop out.

I had enough credits to get out,so i became the official parking lot monitor,just drove through on my way to work in the afternoon.
Another thing that has bothered me is the fact that all of teachers i had were older than dirt and had no personality.
I learned a lot from the history teacher i had.he just happened to be gay back when it was not fashionable.
As far as i know he never hit on students and to this day i still talk to him when back home.

I had a math teacher in high school that loved me. She had the knack for teaching and really enjoyed her students. She’s the kind of teacher and person that you see out in public long after graduation and wanna go talk to her and say hello.

My only real bad math experience was in college. I lacked just one elective to met a requirement. I picked matrix algebra. The professor was Russian and he would start sweating profusely just from being 8n front of the class and actually teaching. I didn’t learn anything in there . I usually ace all math classes. So the end of the semester comes and I got a C. I went to his office to inquire about it and he started looking at my grades and said you should have gotten a D and changed it to a D. I just cut my losses. D equals diploma.

Lol

Both. Very hard to decipher language while crunching numbers

Except for the HS plane and solid geometry teacher, none of my math teachers are at all memorable, but they must have been good because the Trig, Calc, Stat, Diff Eq, etc. all worked fine. On those occasions when I did stumble or need some explanation, I simply asked my Dad - a master machinist with only a HS diploma but a wealth of knowledge developed for his craft. Made me wonder about some teachers. It turned out that my chosen career field did not call for much math use, but it did stay alive in some avocational design projects and certainly in my shooting pursuits.

Oddly, and quite a few years later, our youngest daughter doing a graduate degree in Bio-Engineering got herself (for once) wrapped around the axle on an advanced math situation - so while she was home for the weekend we sat down and got it straightened out fairly quickly. She looked at me rather funny and asked how I knew about that. Someone said that lack of use will cause math skills to wither and I think he is correct. Don't ask me anything beyond algebra or a bit of Trig today.

I never forget what my Linear Algebra professor told me ( NY , state university ) : to understand this stuff you need to sniff something before coming to class.
he didn't mean glue or drug , he was really funny and can't remember his name.

loved math , specially linear algebra and partial diff.

High School Algerbra teacher treated us like men. Knew I struggled horribly, and all but gave me the answers so I could graduate and get the hell out of school. I was horrible at math, had a math tutor for most of high school, and ironically spend my days buried in numbers now. I reckon all I needed was dollar signs for it to make sense.


That was long ago when teachers thought of us as individuals, trying to find our way. I could never thank him enough, for damn sure.

may have been the same harvesting, timber engineer i had. he had joint canada/us citizenship as did his son that he told us about every single day.

i'd go visit with him regular to review grades. i could run the numbers w/the best of them, and then he'd give me a friggin D.

that wouldn't stand. back into his office, and a discussion. the grade got moved to C. well, i was still robbed.

i don't want to wish him ill, but he wasn't much of a teacher. an education course wuld have helped?

I grilled my mind for the first time in math class.

Tripping nuts:

Mr. Pugh, Jr. high math, 6'4" red faced alky with a bowl haircut that couldn't keep his eyes off all the girls with big boobs, talked about going to church all the time.

My high school algebra teacher was a little guy. Most of the boys in the class were bigger than he was, including me. He was about 30 years old, with a crew-cut, starched white shirt and tie, always. He ran a tight ship and taught in a serious, rigid manner that turned me off. I didn't care much for homework and I was not keeping up in class. In short, I was destined to fail the class.

I sat in the last row and read gun and hunting magazines when I could get away with it. One day he caught me at it, studying the ballistics tables in the ammo section of the latest 1965 Remington catalog. He ordered me to report to him after school. This was not looking good for me, because I had an after-school job to get to, and I expected him to be mad at me for disrespecting him and the class he was trying to teach.

When I reported to him later that day, he asked me to produce the Remington catalog. I expected him to confiscate it or trash it. I pulled it out of my binder-notebook and handed it to him, still folded open to the ammo ballistics page.

He looked up and down the page that showed a picture of each cartridge along the left margin, with all the data for the cartridges in columns across the page.

Surprisingly, he then asked me which cartridge I thought I liked the best. I told him, the 6MM Rem. He asked me why. I started rattling off the factory numbers, velocities, bullet weights, trajectory figures, and why I liked it better than the 243 Win and that I was saving up money from my after-school job to buy one of the new Rem M-600s in 6MM Rem.

This teacher that I had thought was such a stick-in-the mud lit up like an excited teenager. He started telling me about the brand new Winchester M-70 Westerner in the hot new 264 Win Mag chambering that he had just bought, and had only put one box of ammo through it, yet. We hit it off real well from then on. I started paying attention in class. He offered me extra help to keep me going in class and we had some very interesting conversations.

He told me that his dream rifle was a trim, full-stock Mannlicher Schoenauer Carbine in 6.5x54mm. That statement showed me that he was a true rifle buff, and knew a bit about rifles. The M-S Carbine would have fit his small physical stature better than the big Winchester magnum. I had already read Hatcher's Notebook, as had he, and we enjoyed talking about rifles and ballistics, and many of the experiments Col. Hatcher had been involved in at the Springfield Armory.

Epilogue: As soon as I had enough money, about $100, I convinced my parents to let me buy the M-600. The only chambering on hand locally at the time was the 308 Win.
Being impatient, and not wanting to risk getting on my parents bad side (which happened frequently) and have them revoke their permission to purchase, I got the 308.
I got my first deer with that carbine, but never really became good friends with it. I bought my first set of reloading dies for that rifle. I sold it before I went overseas, and eventually replaced it with a Ruger M-77 in 7x57.

I learned that whether a class in school, regardless of subject, was great or terrible mostly boiled down to the individual teacher and their personality and style of teaching.

I had the worst Algebra teacher ever in 8th grade. Mrs. Taylor. She hated her job, she hated men/boys, and mostly she hated white people. I'll leave you to guess her skin color. If you were a white male you were getting a B, at best.

I had a genius pre-calc teacher. He was something of a legend at Southern Illinois University, academically.

I took AP calc just because it was next in progression in HS but wanted a real college Calc course and not the AP high school version. Mr. Wampler looked like Ferris Bueller but skinnier, and wore 4XL sweaters every day, no matter the weather. It was like he was wearing curtains. But he was a great professor and didn't take chit from anyone.