Every single teacher I remember as being influential on me in any significant was was hugely enthusiastic for their subject and the material. No matter how hard

Every single teacher I remember as being influential on me in any significant was was hugely enthusiastic for their subject and the material. No matter how hard or easy the class was, that enthusiasm was definitely the biggest contributing factor to how much of an impact they had on me. One of the only classes I ever really struggled with was a government / civics class. The teacher assigned difficult work and graded hard. But they were enthusiastic, firmly convinced that the key to understanding US government and politics was understanding the sides and arguments in the major landmark Supreme Court cases. So convinced of this were they, that many classes were spent with them enthusiastically recreating oral arguments for various cases. Presenting both halves of them as if they were the lawyers, and leaving us to ask questions about the positions and the arguments. To this day, that enthusiasm for those cases, for understanding both how each side of these cases is both convinced they’re in the right and how often the cases pivot on very narrow aspects of the law has carried over for me decades later. Those lessons and the insights have shaped not only my passing interests in law and politics, but how I approach day to day conflict and debate. If they had been unenthusiastic and dry, like so many other teachers I’d had, theirs would have been just another boring US history class with a jerk of a “difficult” teacher.