QotD: Apple For The Teacher

Who was your best (or worst) elementary school teacher?
Submitted by Minnow. 

I was fortunate or unfortunate enough to do the first four of my school years in a private school.  Metro Baptist Academy was its name.  As you can tell by the name, it was a bible school.  It wasn't however an uptight kind of place.  It was a very relaxed and fun atmosphere.

Somehow, within their system, they made it possible for one to continually have the same teacher.  So, from kindergarten through fourth grade, I had the same teacher, Mrs. Cochran.  Let me tell you that this woman ruled!  She was funny and smart (but who isn't to a 2nd grader) and she was just a fun adult to be around.

I was, at the time, somewhat of a class clown.  I got away with it though, because I was also smarter than my years: in private school because since I have a December birthday, public school wouldn't let me in at age 4 and I was more than my parents could handle...they couldn't keep secrets because I could already read and spell.  Anyways, our little crew of Amy, Jeannie, Neil, Richard, Frank and myself were always a little rowdy.  (Those are seriously their names, by the way.)  I guess that Mrs. C was just having a bad day and we were not helping the situation.  Most of us could tell when she was getting past the point of having fun with us, but not Frank.  Frank never knew when to quit.

Mrs. C warned him.  We tried to warn him.  He was having no part of it because he was just having fun in his own littel world.  And then it happened.  Something just snapped.  Mrs. C got tired of Frank's incessant babbling and running around.  She offered him one final warning which went roughly like this:

"Frank, if you can't stay in your seat, I'm going to have to tape you to it."

Now, we thought this was just hysterical.  We thought she was joking.  We found out that she wasn't.  Out Frank popped from his seat one more fateful time followed immediately by Mrs. C saying that she had warned him.  A roll, and I'm completely serious here, of duct tape magically appeared from her desk drawer.  She told Frank to park it and for once, he listened.  She proceeded to tape him to his desk.  Arms and legs and a strip across the mouth for good measure.  Can you imagine if that happened nowadays?!?!

He didn't stay taped all that long and we all found it to be funny, even Frank.  For that, Mrs. C gets the best teacher award.  I must say though, that elementary school wouldn't have been complete without Mrs. Zeli who was an angel in Marion Elementary and Mr. Bilski who didn't get mad the day we decided to hide me in the classroom for the entire day.  Ahh, the good old days.