Crystal Apple Awards

My church hosts The Crystal Apple Awards where our Seminary students get to nominate their favorite teacher.  It can't just be a favorite teacher either.  This teacher has to have gone the extra mile, made the student want to better themselves and improve those around them.  Sounds like an impossibility doesn't it?  But 65 teachers in three high schools were nominated.  Three teachers were awarded the Crystal Apple in each school and 6 teachers from each school were given an honorable mention.

One teacher from a school that was not my daughter's school was an Air Force Retiree.  He is an ROTC teacher now.  What I found interesting about him was, he was headed to Homeland Security about the time my husband was to retire.  He would have been doing the same job.  He told me he found no satisfaction at that level.  That he wasn't reaching anyone.  His commander then told him, it was teens he needed to reach.  He was adamant and said, "No way!"  But all things fell into place and he became the ROTC instructor.  And a darned good one, as he has impacted many.

Another recipient was a Biology teacher who said, whenever she tells people she teaches that subject people always say the same thing, "Ugh!  I hated that subject."  And she wanted kids to be excited about learning period.  And that there was so much more about the subject itself.  She sounded like a cool teacher.  I talked to her as well.  I remembered my Biology teacher.  He was awesome.  He went the extra mile for me.  He made sure I didn't get lost in the system.  And had they done these awards when I was in school, I would have entered him and a few others....

Which brings me to this...

Mr.  Ostrowski my Biology teacher.  He made sure this kid didn't get lost in a class full of kids who didn't give a crap.  I struggled to get a C most days.  Sweat blood to get a B and never dreamed of a A.  So maybe at the end of the school year I was teacher's pet, but he cared about all of his students, even the ones who didn't care.

Any and all my drama teachers.  Our drama department was so poor.  But our teachers were spirited and fun.  They played and let us be our misfit selves.  They also challenged us with Shakespeare and Greek Tragedies.  Some of them sang with us.  Some of them we crushed on.

English teachers who encouraged my writing even when I said in an essay that teachers were mean and only there to babysit(more or less).  The teacher who received that essay gave me an A for the paper saying only this:  Teachers like that need to get out of the profession.  He was spot on!
Who was your favorite teacher?  How would you honor them?