In reply to deepstar: Intriguingly, I had a teacher who managed to both inspire me in one area (biology) and put me off another (PE).
"Des" had a reputation for being a cold blooded psychopath with a barely controllable temper and a penchant for causing physical distress - like Begbie from Train Spotting but less predictable.
He was also, extraordinarily, a highly capable, deeply motivated biology teacher who treated his A level charges as intelligent, motivated, mature and valued our contributions. To the extent that once when I ended up copying someone else's homework with the same transcription error we were both absolutely gutted, and I learnt that the "only cheating yourself" adage is actually true.
For a couple of years as a spotty youth learning about girls, beer and making more mistakes than I ever thought possible I was treated as an adult, and most of the time I rose to the occasion. I may still have been where I am today without him (if you will excuse my mangling of the conditional perfect tense) but it would have taken years longer to "learn how to learn". It's been downhill ever since of course
Quite why he was such a nutjob when he had a ball / stick in hand is a differnt question but is suggests that some of the reductionist arguments above are missing some nuance....
b