As for the Topic of Day...
Fifth Grade - Mrs. Wallace and Mr. Kennedy. But mainly Mrs. Wallace. She just made me want to learn everything. And since it was just a fifth grade class, she did teach everything. I even wrote to her when I was in high school thanking her for being such a great teacher. Mr. Kennedy was the other fifth grade teacher and he would sometimes take over the science and history sections. He also lived on a cool "estate", and I still remember a field trip to his "estate". It was sort of like a Colonial Days outing. We cooked food. We made lye soap - well the teachers made the lye soap (fifth graders and lye.. ). And I also remember digging up a wagon wheel in his yard - he lived on some historical land. Now that was cool!
My Junior and Senior English teachers in high school - Mrs. Kamerrer and Mr. Johnson. Just cool people, and they taught more than just English. Mr. Johnson was particularly colorful. He used to work as a night attendant at St. Elizabeth's hospital, and he would share some of the funnier and sometimes dark incidents from his time in the psych ward. And since he taught "fast", we would spent the last week of each semester just watching movies: "Casablanca", "Vertigo", and some Three Stooges shorts.
As for college, my Song Literature Class taught by Melanie Kohn-Day (now just back to Melanie Kohn). It was primarily a class for the Vocal Majors, but since I was doing a lot of accompanying and singing as well (I was a Vocal Minor), I was allowed to take the class. And since the class was actually a performance-based class, I was able to participate as both a pianist and a singer. Melanie was a truly passionate teacher - and she was truly passionate for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau!
. Her breadth of knowledge was always astounding but never intimidating. Anytime we were scheduled to perform - basically as "live examples" - we would have an individual coaching or two with her before presenting the song in class. I learned some great accompanying secrets - cheats - from her, and she also was an additional help to me with my foreign language diction. Whenever I would play for the class, I would end up playing for someone else in the class. However, when I would sing in the class, she would play for me. And that was always a very safe and comforting and sympathetic feeling, partnership.
