Did a Teacher Touch Your Life?

Do you have any cool teacher stories? Someone who impacted your life in a positive way? Someone who told you one thing one time, in passing maybe, and who really made a difference?
Teachers really give a lot for our kids. Talking from experience, I can tell you that knowing that you have made a difference in a kid’s life is the most rewarding feeling.

Here’s a couple of my stories:

I had this PE teacher in middle and high school. This was in France and for some reason, that teacher was known as Toto and everybody used “tu” when addressing him. This is the friendly, informal way to address people in French and you don’t usually do that with teachers. But he was a friend to all of us. I don’t even remember his real name! He was always Toto!

I often think of his dedication to us. We were a group of cross country running girls. It just kinda happened. We were all in the same age group and the team naturally formed. But Toto took it a step further. During the normal after school training times, he would take us out of the school and we would run in the hills surrounding the area. It was great.

Then on Sundays, he decided to organize this extra training, in his own time for us. He would pick us up in his van in the morning and we would drive a few miles out of town in the bigger hills and we would just run. One time I remember it was snowing and we just trained anyway. We just loved it and it really didn’t feel like something you had to do. We all looked forward to it!

As a result, our little team qualified for the French Championship that year and we cam 6th overall, out of about 50 teams, if I remember well. We took a trip to the Champagne area where the championship was taking place. Hours before the race,

Toto had organized a visit of one of the Champagne cellars and we all had our little glass of Champagne! Maybe that’s why we did well! The whole trip was great fun. Toto was great and really loved his job and did it for the kids. Thank God there are still a few Toto’s left out there who really know why they got into teaching!

Another teacher I remember was a professor I had at college when I was studying English. He did a civilization class on Australia and Canada. His classes were great! All the material he got was weeks old. He made sure to take at least one trip to whatever country he was going to be lecturing about and brought us back the latest news, the latest culture. He was passionate about what he taught and really got students interested.

I remember taking one of his exams and it was one of my best memories of taking a test. I guess that his classes had been so interesting that I had just naturally learned things and it was great fun to talk about it in the exam. It was also the best grade I ever got in an exam at university.

Later on, he helped me go on an exchange to the United States and this really changed my life. A few years later, he got sick and passed away. I often wish he was still around so that he could give me advice.

I could go on about other teachers that impacted my life, but here’s your turn now!

Give us your funny anecdotes or your moving stories. They might be what someone else needs right now and maybe you will be able to pass on what made a difference to you all those years ago.

Thanks for sharing!