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Discussion (9)

  • Arahant@Arahant

    My father had a Puerto Rican drill instructor whose favorite phrase was, "I'm gonna peench your head off!" And Dad was pretty sure he could do it. Maybe not as good as being folded up into a pretzel, but it got the job done.

  • Stad@Stad

    I only had 4 teachers who had an influence on me, and all were in high school: My 11th grade English teacher, my 11th grade chemistry teacher, my 12th grade calculus and physics teacher, and my German teacher (10-12). All the others were either average or mediocre (IMHO). Still, these 4 had an influnce on me that's lasted a lifetime.

    My English teacher made the subject interesting, and helped me understand my own language more.

    My chemistry teacher not only convinced me I was smart enough to do science, but made me choose to go to college.

    My calc and physics teacher followed up on my chemistry teacher's encouragement and also gave me my undergraduate major - physics.

    And my German teacher . . . well, I was always interested in taking German, and he was simply too cool to be a teacher. After Christmas vacation in 12th grade, he gave each of us a syllabus and said, "If you do everything on this list and come to me to get your work checked out, you are done for the year." Needless to say, most of us worked our butts off. Sure enough, we completed our work several weeks before the end of the school year. We spent most of our time reading, playing Scrabble, shooting the breeze with the teacher, and going on some cool field trips.

    It made me wonder why I didn't have more teachers like them . . .

  • Miffed White Male@MiffedWhiteMale

    I haven't listened to this one yet, so I'm not sure why, but @Arahant insists that this story from the Pit needs to be shared here:

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    In high school there was a guy who at lunch made a bet that he could drink an entire gallon of milk (in the form of those little half-pint cartons). Pretty much everyone in the cafeteria (several hundred kids) was gathered around, standing on tables, etc. A garbage can was placed next to him for precautionary reasons. He was down to the last couple cartons and looking pretty haggard.

    The inevitable happened, and every single kid that had been watching scattered in the space of about 5 seconds.

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Sounds like a tale to share with James Lileks’ Diner for this week.

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    There MIGHT be a picture in the year book.

    Edit: Yup. Notice his hand is resting on the edge of the garbage can.

    Yeah, definitely needs to go here:

    https://ricochet.com/podcast/the-diner/an-apple-for-the-teacher/

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