You can teach if you want to

The current issue of Beverly Hills Weekly lists some teachers and other staff of Beverly Hills Unified School district who are retiring at the end of this school year. Obviously, there are many familiar names on the list, but some of the familiar names are people I never actually met. Hence, let me mention the ones I actually knew:

David Knowlton: I had him for AP Physics at Beverly High. He didn't know the material he was teaching. I would often read issues of EGM during class. If one other person in the class and I got the same answer on a test, Knowlton essentially defined it as correct and there was at least one time when both of us turned out to have made the same mistake. Another time, I remember Knowlton asking me how to do a problem while I had a break during Science Olympiad (Knowlton was the coach). That problem was on the test he had given us the day before. It should be obvious from what I've written, but I didn't exactly respect him.

Scott Harvey: I had him for AP Poly Sci/Honor Econ (which were combined into one year-long course) during my senior year at Beverly. He was awesome! I appreciated the fact that he said what he actually thought and wouldn't put up with bullshit. He had a lot of critics, but typically those were people who were used to bullshitting their way through things. Harvey was one of the best teachers I had. Also, my idea for my senior-year graduation picture came from his class: he spent the entire year joking around about people flipping burgers at McDonalds, and on the day we picked up our caps and gowns, Harvey filmed each person in his class for a minute; we each wore our cap, held the spatula prominently, and said what we planned to do with our lives. I approve!

Dorothy Wong: She was my kindergarden teacher at Hawthorne School. She put up with my dinosaur fetish and let me proceed at a faster pace than the other students. (I have had numerous teachers who held me back because she wanted everybody in the class at the same place, no matter how far ahead of them I could be if they only let me see the next material.)

Dorthy Adler: She was the health ad I often saw at both Hawthorne and Beverly. At Hawthorne, she was the one to talk to in order to get home from school early. :)