my top 5 teachers.

1) Ms. Dalton. kindergarten (1985). i went to PHE for kindergarten with the butterfly lady. even now people call her the butterfly lady. every year she collected monarch caterpillers and raised them in her classroom so that the kids could learn the metamorphasis process and how to treat them, what they ate, etc. it was a huge thing. they've done stories on her, they muraled one wall of the school with butterflies and cocoons and forests and everything. she was amazing. plus, i freaked her out twice. once i had a nosebleed that was so bad it wouldn't stop bleeding and she thought i had a clotting problem and the other time i got really allergic to the punk trees on the road (those are the trees that have bark like paper) and my eyes swelled shut and had to go home. ahh, allergies, my friend. sweet blinding allergies.

2) Ms. True. freshman english (1998). i learned to love to write, other than whiny poetry.

3) Mr. Hines. 11th grade english (1996). i copped out of advanced english because they wanted a portfolio and all i wanted to do was play cards in the backroom of the bandroom. so i got stuck with the stupid kids. all the non-advanced english classes weren't stupid, but the people in this class were. and i kept getting cheated off of and had to explain everything to the stupid people around me. but mr. hines never lost his cool and made us watch really great movies, like shawshank redemption and the emerald forest and a midnight clear. as opposed to spanish, where the same stupid people convinced profe that friday didn't have anything objectionable in it.

also, i wore this button on my backpack that had pinocchio on it and it said "would i lie?" and he really liked it.

also, he realized that the rest of the people in the class were stupid and let me get a pass to the bandroom whenever i wanted one.

4) Mr. Blackburn. 6th grade geography (1991). it really isn't mr. blackburn's fault that i'm so terrible at geography. he really tried; i know it. but he is responsible for my impecable sense of direction. his introduction to the cardinal directions was to stand on his desk and scream north! while pointing to the north wall of the room. it's engrained in my head now. north!

5) ms. vaccaro & mrs. sapashe. 2nd grade (1987). since they were both my 2nd grade teachers, i feel justified in giving them a tie. ms. vaccaro taught me to close my s's (not to be confused with esses) in cursive, and mrs. sapashe taught us the value of plastic money when she set up shop in her classroom. plus, i learned how to do my 9x tables on my fingers in her class.