Reply #13: I brought my geometry teacher to tears

[mzteris]

more than once. (She was a rookie teacher...) She couldn't understand how I could keep getting the right answers by working the problems the "wrong way"!

Finally, her supervising teacher came into the classroom and told me I could work the problems any way I wanted, but to stop confusing the teacher and the other students with my "alternative way" discussions... If I really wanted to talk about them, to see him before/after school.

He was the same teacher I had two years later (in an intro to Calc class) who told me as long as I "tried" in his class he'd give me any grade I wanted. I was going to drop because my parents would ground me for making anything less than a "B". I wound up making B's in there anyway, but that's beside the point. His philosophy was teaching was about learning, not about grades. He was an excellent teacher.

I was good with geometry and probability. Algebra, not so much.