The worst teacher I ever had was a substitute chemistry teacher my junior year in high school. The guy had a well deserved long reputation of being an ass, and I never saw him do anything to disprove it. I was the unusual female of my generation who loved science of any sort. I had discovered it in grade school and man was I good at it. In my freshman year, I had taken freshman science and still loved it. As my sophomore year approached, I had to decide which biology to take, "the jerk's" or the "loony lady's". I choose the loony lady and it was a good choice. She was a little odd, however, she really knew her stuff. She loved biology and she inspired me to share her passion for it. So, as my junior year rolled around the choice seemed easy. She was the junior chemistry teacher and I actually looked forward to going back to school to have class with her. On the first day of class she looked nothing like I remembered. Her hair was gone, and she had red lines on her head. Brain cancer was the cause of these changes and six weeks into the school year she was gone. Teaching was too much of a drain on her. Taking her place for the rest of the year, was "the jerk". Things inevitably went downhill from there. He was arrogant, felt women had no place in science, and was quite vocal about it. He made fun of questions the girls asked, but gave very long technical answers to the boys. He didn't even have the courtesy to call us by name. "You in the pink sweater" is what I came to think of as my name in his class. The rudeness and the arrogance made me decide it wasn't worth it and I dropped the class at the end of the first quarter. My "loony lady" never made it back as she died by December of that year. With her died alot of my dreams, for my career choices were science based prior to having the ass for a teacher. However, I would love the worst teacher I ever had to know, that it may be many years later, but I am in a profession where my love of science serves me well.