Family Tree - Education Lineage / Genealogy

I have never thought of myself as a literal kind of person, but as I sat down to work on this part of the weeks assignment I quite literally started at birth and wrote down every teacher I could think of, giving each one a + or - score.  Up until my college years it was a fairly straight forward recollection process, after college not so much.  I can't remember all the names but I remember at least one inconsequential fact about every teacher I had in K-12.  The surprising thing is I hated school so much back then, every good teacher has some sort of bad memory to accompany them: 
 - I remember being 5 years old and being humiliated for the first time.  Something about how I was a very moveable child and was told in no uncertain terms "do no get up again" or else, and sitting at my seat until I peeing my pants because I didn't ask to get up. 
 - I remember forging currency in 2nd grade so I could buy toys.  My teacher would hand out little slips of cut up paper, worth varying amounts, for following the rules or doing something well, and at the end of the semester we could buy stuff from her "classroom store".  I worked so much harder to fake the "classroom currency" than I ever did at following the rules.  
 - After a month and a half of third grade my parents decided to hold me back a grade because I was having so many learning troubles.  In that short span of time my teacher had confiscated a bucket full of stuff from me.  Every day I would come to class with something to play with, marbles, mini figurines, toy-shaped erasers, pens, pencils, etc., and everyday she would end up taking it away in an effort to get me to focus on the whatever she was teaching, to no avail.  Once going back to 2nd I was very self-conscious and felt stupid.  My teacher was amazing and made me her special helper for the year, which helped to bolster my spirits, but not enough.   
The list goes on, and on, and on.  As a child I was your typical, very active little holy terror.  At 5 my mom enrolled my sister and I in art lessons for the summer.  In the beginning, I’m sure, the lessons were more for my mother’s peace of mind than my own, but as the years passed I grew to cherish the time I spent each week learning to draw the world around me.  My teacher was a phenomenal artist in her own right and she had a gift for working with children.  I seemed to be continually moving in place when I was young and with drawing I could make myself slow down and be calm.  Throughout elementary and middle school, I remember feeling a great deal of accomplishment after completing a project and earning an A in my art classes.  I don't know how much of that was due to the teachers or just finding something I loved doing wholeheartedly.   
In 8th grade I started attending public school, I went form the same 15 to 20 kids 1st grade through 7th to over  a thousand students all the same age in one building and not knowing any of them.  The art room became my sanctuary.  
My freshman year however Mr. Utsler was my art teacher and the worst teacher I'd ever had up to that point, (that included my geography teacher from the year before who has us watch snow boarding videos and movies all year).   Mr. Utsler was in his last year teaching, and he hated students, hated teaching, maybe even art.  He infected everyone around him with a distaste for the subject and I didn't take art for a year after that.  
Throughout high school I remember being closer to my teachers than fellow students. I was no longer the holy terror in class but the teacher's pet.  The ones who really stand out as amazing educators each had something unique and genuine about them.  Whether it was a sarcastic/cynical wit, twenty years of experience and still being amazed by students, passion for their subject or compassion for the emotional roller coaster of life a teenager goes through, they all left a profound impression upon me.   Honestly, I think the "bad" teachers had a greater impact, because I wanted to be a teacher and prove it wasn't that hard.  The ones who screwed it up so badly had no excuse. 
During my senior year I did 50 hours of community service and I would spend an hour a day at an elementary school.  The 4th grade teacher who I helped out was in her last year teaching.  She did all kinds of little extras to incorporate art projects into every subject.  Watching her made me really want to be a teacher for the first time.  

College life was easy for the first couple years, not much of a challenge.  
My Algebra teacher was a Japanese guy who had been burned in a fire and over 90% of his body was scared.  When he wrote on the board he had to lift his leg because the skin didn't stretch enough, but he had the most beautiful hand writing!  I purposefully changed the way I wrote the number nine after taking his class.  
I opened up so much to my English teacher through the Journal writings she assigned that we kept in contact for four years after class ended.  I couldn't tell you her name now.
The first photography teacher I had thought he was God's gift to the world and if you didn't instantly get everything he taught, you weren't worth his time.  Thank goodness I could take good pictures. 
My Chemistry teacher was a washed up professional who thought he could just switch to teaching, not!  If not for a friend in the class I would have failed.  Just because you understand how to do complex mathematical equations in your head dose mean you can teach someone else to do the same. 
Then came MU, I have been a student at here for almost eight years.  The list of amazing teachers I have had the privilege of learning from is quite extensive.  I purposefully took every single course Mark Langeneckert taught just so I could work with him, and in all that time he only once gave me an A.  He is a phenomenal illustrator and instructor, but refused to let me get by without doing my best.  I truly respect him for it.   

The good and bad qualities of a teacher are much the same in college as they are in high school.  I have had teachers who should retire and won't, teachers with far too much intelligence to teach anything all, and others I didn't respect because I did a better job explaining how to do the assignment to classmates than they did.   
The Art and Art Ed departments at MU have some of the greatest artist-teachers ever.  (Kathy Unrath and Jo Stealey just to name my favorites)   The biggest impression I am left with after all this self-reflection is that I have such a long way to go to be anywhere near the level of educator my teacher's example has set for me.