A wide, cinematic digital painting capturing a surreal memory-scape of public school life, filtered through nostalgia and quiet rebellion. Foreground: a student desk sitting alone in a sun-lit hallway, papers scattered, a backpack half-unzipped, and a forgotten textbook stamped with an official-looking seal, symbolizing the coercive system. Midground: scenes from school life blur together like fragmented memories — a warm kindergarten classroom corner with a teacher kneeling and smiling, a chalkboard covered in doodles instead of lessons, a football coach leaning against a door laughing with students, and a history book cracked open with light emerging from its pages. Background: the faint silhouette of a factory-like institutional school building fades into mist, while patches of soft golden light break through, representing the rare teachers who made learning feel human. Mood: reflective, slightly rebellious, nostalgic but critical — blending realism with a faint dreamlike glow. No text overlay. Wide banner. Digital painting.

7 public school teachers whose classes I actually enjoyed

ByTC Marti

Not all of my public school teachers were awful. Coercive? Yes. But a few of them actually managed to make school mildly interesting, so they deserve credit.

Oh, goodness. This might have been the toughest list I’ve ever concocted, considering the fact I had so few adequate public school teachers. I spent a good 10 minutes racking my brain until I managed to come up with this list, and I had written about one teacher in particular before. So it tells you a lot about how small the selection size was.

I’ll admit that I didn’t “get something” from all of these people, but you can at least be rest assured that they, in one way, shape, or form, stood out. Do I miss any of their classes? Hell no. But they could have been way, way more forgettable.

1 – Kindergarten teacher who remembered your name decades later

Yeah, we had the boring subjects like reading and math. We had to sit still when told to, and were subjected to the entire “Prussian Model” B.S. But I’ve never run into a former teacher so many times after I left their class following the 1996-97 school year who hadn’t forgotten anyone’s name. That actually showed me that I wasn’t a number to them.

2 – Tenth-grade bio teacher who inspired a few likable characters

I literally based Lawrence Saturn from Tarja Titan on them. And while some might find them to be revolting, they were anything but. Imagine going into a bio class and instead getting 35 years’ worth of stories from an aging teacher about their entire career that dated back to the 1970-71 school year. I never learned bio, but who cares? I can recite their hilarious stories that they should put into a memoir to this day.

3 – 30-percent rule teacher who only cared about coaching football

If even 15 percent of the class was missing, they declared “30-percent rule,” and we did nothing but talk to our “neighbors.” They even had us do the bare minimum of actual school work. I mean, who the hell was actually there to learn psychology and sociology? They never even handed out textbooks, so it was my kind of class.

4 – Third-grade teacher who didn’t make us sit still

Like the Kindergarten teacher listed earlier, this one still subjected us to the entire “Prussian Model.” But the free-reading time and the fact they let us read wherever we wanted as long as it was somewhere in the room gave this teacher a non-traditional approach. That, and the fact they didn’t treat us like kids, but at least somewhat like equals.

5 – Teacher who was once “caught stealing bricks”

Yeah, they were caught stealing bricks and supposedly went to jail for it long before I had them in the 2005-06 school year. As for their class? It was a joke. But you know what? They had hilarious mannerisms like leaving half their shirt untucked, knocking on what they called a podium, and ringing a bell when we got too loud. Fun fact: Braden Hawk mentions the entire “brick incident” in Tarja Titan: Sophomore Year.

6 – Eighth-grade history teacher who handed me half a red pill

If you’re wondering where my entire alternative view on the War Between the States started, it was with this teacher here. They let us know the North fought to “preserve the Union,” and the South fought to “defend their homeland.” Until then, I literally thought this was a war over slavery, even if it struck me as strange as far back as the fifth grade of why the border states stuck around with the Union.

7 – Twelfth-grade citizenship teacher who never lectured

The Arcane Prophecy by TC MartiI wrote an entire article on this teacher, one who never lectured and whose class I aced with flying colors. Why? Because they never made us recite or repeat a damn thing. Instead, the more creative you were, the more you won out.

They would’ve been excellent at the Arcane Elemental Academy, given their overall style. We never had to sit still, shut up, and face forward with them. They instead made us part of the conversation, just as so many teachers Yote Diamondback has up at Arcane.

But before Yote steps foot in this completely market-based elemental academy, she nearly ended up in a school that followed the traditional model. Hell, that’s what she initially wanted. See how it all went down with the first three chapters of Book I, The Arcane Prophecy, and discover how Yote ended up going to Arcane.

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