Day 18 - Favorite class/school subject

I have two basic favorites and anyone who knew me in high school or college should be able to guess at least one of the two of these.  Actually, anyone who knows what I'm certified to teach should be able to guess both of these.

Spanish-

I remember Senora George in Jr. High who taught my intro class.  I think I learned the alphabet and a little bit of vocab and that's about it.  It was fun because we always got her off on some tangent, I think she had lived in Peru and she liked to tell us about living there.  Senora McLean was my high school Spanish teacher.  I had her for 1st, 3rd and 4th year.  Good times...she was spunky...she made me feel like I was good at Spanish...I didn't always get A's (I blame all of the school I skipped as a Junior and Senior)...I use a lot of things I remember about her classes and implement those techniques into my own teaching.  In college I loved my Professors of Spanish for the most part.  I'm thinking particularly of Brother Ivers who was always so good about making ties and connections to the culture.  He was actually the first Spanish teacher I ever had at BYU-Idaho (as well as the last).  I remember he called up to my house as a freshman to find out why I wasn't in class and asked me to make sure I was getting to class.  He always said, at the beginning of each course, "Even if you fail every part of this class, I'll still like ya."  I always enjoyed Brother Clark who would have us sing hymns at the beginning of each class and talk about the gauchos of Argentina and all sorts of fun literature and spit when he talked. 

Geography-

Okay, I really started to like Geography after Mr. Arends Global Issues class in 10th grade.  I don't actually remember having a Geography class before that.  Then, to get out of taking a science class/lab I took Geography instead from Brother Madsen.  Holy cow, was he just the coolest professor ever!!!  He loves his subject.  I decided to make Geography my minor after taking one of his classes.  Ok, so the maps and remote sensing/GIS stuff isn't my cup of tea...but I love the cultural geography stuff.  I also took a great class called writing for the social sciences and it was delish, I learned all about semiotics and fun stuff that I wouldn't normally have looked into.