We can all agree that classrooms work better as sitcom sets, so lets recognize the teachers we actually paid attention to.
The official voting period has ended. See the results below.
15. Professor Oak (Pokémon)
Position: Pokemon Expert, Pallet Town.
What he taught us: Besides staying out of tall grass, Oak's philosophy pretty much comes down to alternating between caring for your Pokemon like it's your greatest friend in the whole world, and teaching it new moves like "slash" and "bite" to use against other Pokemon in the midst of a savage battle. He'd also make a pretty good economics professor, considering his frugality in hiring unsupervised 10 year-olds as his personal deliverymen/primary research assistants/bodyguards.
14. Ms Norbury (Mean Girls)
Position: Math Teacher, North Shore High School
What she taught us: That girl-on-girl cruelty, hilarious as it is, should be overcome with care and honesty, and absolutely nothing to do with math, since it seems like the redhead in the back was doing pretty much everything for the entire movie.
13. John Keating (Dead Poets Society)
Position: English, Welton Academy for Boys
What he taught us: To seize the day, especially if your definition of "seizing the day" involves repeatedly sitting in the same room learning old poetry from a guy who makes you call him "captain". In fairness, he also excellently demonstrated how to maintain balance on those rickety school desks. And you never know when you're going to need that.
12. Dewey Finn (School of Rock)
Position: Music Teacher, Horace Green Elementary School/The School of Rock
What he taught us: That shirking responsibility, ruining your best friend professionally, and lying about everything ever will change your life unequivocally for the better. It's a good thing his methods of teaching earned a runner-up place in a local battle of the bands, or the whole thing would have been pointless.
11. Ms Frizzle (Magic School Bus)
Position: Teacher, Walkerville Elementary
What she taught us: Ms. Frizzle pioneered the use of merging to-the-book curriculum instruction and packing a roomful of children into an enchanted bus that was pretty much allowed to call the shots for the rest of the day. Sure, putting the education and lives in the proverbial hands of a bus (proverbial, since it is a bus) seems unorthodox, but how else are kids supposed to learn about the digestive system? By reading a book explaining it and NOT shrinking down to the size of a grain of sand and exploring it for themselves? Grow up.
