Describe the best teachers you've ever had

[NinpPop]

I loved my school English teacher very much. She taught English excellently: interesting and informative. 

[Joseph41]

Would love to hear some other perspectives on what has made your favourite teachers your favourites!

[Stormbreaker-X]

Best ones I got a few of them:
Math methods in year 11: So motivated and interested to help students, he would give up lunch times for multiple days in a row to help students who ask him.
Economics in year 12: So motivated and determined she marked pretty much all our exams and spends quite a lot of time with us. Certainly a lot better then some of my other teachers who seem to not give a crap about students at all and barely help.

[lm21074]

I was just thinking about this thread the other day! It's such a wholesome one.

My EngLang teacher last year was hands down, one of the greatest teachers I've ever had. He never left anyone behind. One way he did this was by quizzing the whole class with a game called, "What did the person before you just say?"
It was a really great way to drill the metalanguage in. He also had a spreadsheet for himself where he went through what metalanguage each person knew and worked to develop our understanding through tailored activities until we really mastered the content. People often say that teachers can't possibly cater to the learning needs of 25 or so different students, but this teacher worked from the ground up to ensure that everyone was learning and improving their work. Students also had a lot of respect for him as he was very passionate about helping students and there wasn't really ever much of a need to control the class. Whenever we had a CRT, this was not the case. My EngLang teacher made me want to improve my writing and helped me feel more confident in the subject (and many, many other students). Due to his expertise, he must have caused many lightbulb moments throughout his career. So at the end of the year, a few of us in the class got together and got his classes and his former students to write him a message in a book and when we gave him the book, he told us he was going to cry and that the book will be something to help his family remember him with in the future. I almost cried too.

Such an inspiring teacher and person. I hope that if I ever teach in the future, I can be like him.

[The Cat In The Hat]

I've already posted in this thread but since then I have had a uni lecturer. She obviously really cares about her subject and has told us things that I'll not forget ('Never lose your wonder' being foremost among them after showing us a birth video). She also remembers everyone's names. There are seventy-something students in the unit and campus, I believe. And she knows everyone, like she remembers who asked for help earlier and checks they're okay. She encourages us to ask questions.
Anyway. Big thanks to my HNM101 teacher.

[AngelWings]

Been a good while since I was studying (3 years), so my memory may not be the best.

Grade 6 teacher

Spoiler

The first teacher that came to my mind was my Grade 6 teacher.

He was not just down to earth, but also liked to individually cater and challenge his students. He also had a way of teaching practical things alongside the normal curriculum. For example, there was a day where we repurposed hard waste to make new contraptions, another day we were asked to do a 10 min talk on anything we wanted as long as we taught the class something, and another day where it was mandatory to help teachers with teaching their class or some menial tasks (basically a simpler version of what student teachers do) and/ or entertain some elderly people in the local aged care home.

He also made sure to have fun and play games (we were primarily 11-12 year olds after all), both educational and sporty ones to suit all kinds.

I don’t think I ever learnt as much as I did in primary school up until I had him. He taught a lot of us some crucial life skills.

High school Maths teacher

Spoiler

I had her over the course of a number of years, including Methods U1/2 and Further 3/4 and the one thing that made her stand out compared to the others? The time and effort she went into making comprehensive booklets on the theories and formulae we had to learn. And as a bonus, she’d also print these for us without even a care about cost for her. (I know it might seem wasteful and not good to the earth, but this was just before people really embraced learning with technology and those notes were gold.) Her notes were really thorough and was almost a Dummies’ Guide book, it was that detailed and stepped out. Her notes ended up making part of Further bound reference and made it super easy.   

Her teaching was pretty good too. She took her time to explain concepts, answer questions in breaks and occasionally treated us to baked goods if we were doing well or it was the end of a year.

Uni lecturer and research supervisor

Spoiler

Most of my classmates knew my Honours supervisor as probably the one whose content they understood the least, but you could tell that he had a lot of passion for what he was teaching; he just didn’t have a lot of allocated time to teach some very complex ideas.

When I did my two research projects with him, he was probably the most accommodating teacher I ever had. He was almost always available for a chat (within reason, obviously), whether it was on his content and his research or simply a mental health check. He dealt with me when I was being somewhat unreasonable (I asked for corrections on my thesis basically last minute). He was open and always tried to do his best to help his students whenever he could.

I couldn’t thank him enough even if I tried.