The best teacher I ever had was (and is) my mother. She’s a big part of the reason why I have fought so hard to become a mother – because all my life I wanted to be just like her. She taught me how to be strong, how to be sensitive, how to take care of myself and others. She is always, always proud of me. I’ve learned so much from her about how to be a mother, and I’m so proud that I’m now getting to put all that teaching to use.

Mr B was a quiet man who taught me English Literature. He was quiet and sincere and thoughtful and I felt as if I really had to behave myself to earn his respect. He did a lovely thing for me – he let me read the character Hamlet when the class was reading ‘Hamlet’! It was one of the most glorious things I have ever experienced and I loved it all the more beause I was a girl without tremendous confidence who loved reading and Hamlet is a huge, dramatic, man’s role (ordinarily). He picked me to be Hamlet! I have never been on a sports team but the idea of being picked is something similar I guess. I loved every minute, I love the play, I loved the detailed discussions, the fantastic experience of discussing books and his quiet enthusiasm.

Mrs B made me work very hard and simply forced me to be ready for university. I had so much experience of writing, reading, discussion, mock exams and essays by the time I went that university seemed like a breeze. She was also one of the warmest and most funny people I have met.

I also have to mention Mr Hardy, he taught Chemistry and once said to me, when I was reflecting on how hard I would have to work to push up my Chemistry grade, ‘Don’t worry about this, think about what you will accomplish – people like you change the world’. Naturally I did worry, that’s me, but it was one of the most wonderful things anyone has said to me. I still plan to prove him right.

The second teacher is my middle school social studies teacher Mr. Baylogg, who I still run into every now and then while shopping or (more often than not) sitting at the bar of our neighborhood Mexican restaurant. He was my first male teacher, and he was the first teacher I had that was cool, and smart, and taught personal responsibility. He had Nintendo championships during lunch for students holding higher than a 3.5 GPA, and a politics club after school. (And he let me sit next to the boy I was totally crushing on in the seventh grade!) For all the cool, though, I learned more about American Government and History in the two years I had him that in all of high school combined.

I immediately went to her table and showed her that I actually had scored one mark lower than what was written. She turned pages and checked the score, and said that I deserved one mark more for my honesty. I can’t forget her smile, and somehow it got fitted in my brain, that there are people still around in this world, who have the ability to see the good in others, and who acknowledge it the best they can….