Grading TV’s 16 Most Memorable Teachers Ever
Gather up some shiny apples because it’s Teacher Appreciation Week across the United States, and no one deserves to be celebrated more than the folks who educate young minds. It can be a thankless job for most of the year, but not this week!
To celebrate this important occasion, we wanted to pay homage to some of the teachers who helped us TV fans learn and grow as well by giving them an A+ and a full pack of shiny star stickers. With the good comes the bad, though, so we’re also including those fictional instructors who didn’t quite make the grade (but will undoubtedly make you even more grateful for your teachers).
Here’s a look back at some of the most memorable television teachers of all time. See who gets an A+ … and who gets an F.
Mr. Feeny
The best teachers don’t just teach what’s on the class syllabus; they also make you a better person. Mr. Feeny (William Daniels) from Boy Meets World certainly did that for Cory (Ben Savage), Shawn (Rider Strong), and Topanga (Daniel Fishel).
He advised and guided them through middle and high school and, eventually, college—all while being just a “Feeny call” away. And if Cory’s choice of profession is any indication, Mr. Feeny’s influence endured long after he stopped teaching his favorite students.
Our Grade: A+
Coach Taylor
Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) from Friday Night Lights may not have had his own traditional classroom, but he certainly taught more than his fair share of lessons on and off the Texan football field at East Dillon High School.
He instructed the young men in his care—as well as his own two daughters—to live their lives with integrity, honesty and hard work. In other words, “Clear eyes. Full heart. Can’t lose.”
Our Grade: A+
Colonel Taylor
East Dillon High had Coach Taylor; and Hillman College had Colonel Taylor (Glynn Turman) in A Different World.
The college was defined by its high academic standards, which Colonel Taylor definitely helped keep up. The stern math professor, nicknamed “Dr. War,” constantly pushed his students, particularly Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison), to bring their A game to class, never settling for anything less.
Th rigorous approach definitely paid off as Dwayne not only graduated school, but he eventually became a math professor himself—before going off to invent the flip phone at Kinishewa Electronics.
Our Grade: A
Lena Adams Foster
Lena (Sherri Saum) wasn’t at the front of a classroom for a few seasons in The Fosters, but that didn’t stop her from using teaching skills to raise five children with her wife Stef (Teri Polo) and maintain their marriage.
An educator through-and-through, Lena gave her kids a chance to voice their concerns and issues before gently advising them on what to do. Most recently, she focused her inner teacher role into instructing her youngest son Jude on safe sex.
Our Grade: A-
Mr. Kotter
Mr. Kotter’s (Gabriel Kaplan) return to his Brooklyn alma mater, James Buchanan High School, in Welcome Back Kotter saw him tasked with teaching the “Sweathogs,” a group of high school tough guys, one of whom was played by even movie superstar John Travolta.
A former Sweathog himself, Mr. Kotter drew on his experience and used it to form a rapport with his students, enough so that they often visited his apartment and hung out with him outside the classroom.
Our Grade: A-
Clara Oswald
When she’s not off exploring the furthest reaches of space and time, Clara Oswald can be found at her day job, teaching at Coal Hill School in Doctor Who.
But as her adventures with the Twelfth Doctor revealed, Clara doesn’t need a classroom to inspire young minds. A trip to the Doctor’s distant pre-William Hartnell past showed her calming down a soon-to-be Time Lord and inspiring in him the beliefs (“A soldier so brave he doesn’t need a gun.”) that would come to define the Gallifreyan’s character for centuries to come.
Our Grade: B+
Ms. Frizzle
Some teachers are great at bringing their lessons to life, but none more so than Ms. Frizzle, who used the title subject of The Magic School Bus to help her students better understand scientific principles.
Ms. Frizzle showed how things worked in the larger world, either by shrinking her students into miniature versions to explore the human body or by turning them into animals to learn city wildlife.
Our Grade: B+
Roland Pryzbylewski
Initially a hot-headed, incompetent cop on The Wire, “Prez” (Jim True-Frost) eventually traded in his badge and gun for a teaching certificate and a math textbook.
Once he became the head of a middle school classroom, the former cop’s abrasive personality gave way to his caring and attentive side. He adapted to the flawed school system and became invested in his student’s success, even going as far as providing one of his neglected-at-home students, Duquan “Dukie” Weems, with food and clothing.
Our Grade: B+
Edna Krabappel
The Simpsons‘ Edna Krabappel may have started out bright-eyed and optimistic for her future career in teaching, but years of dealing with the public education system, as well as multiple seasons of teaching Bart Simpson, turned her into a jaded fourth grade teacher who did the bare minimum.
Despite her changed outlook on teaching, the episode “Bart Gets an ‘F’” demonstrated that, somewhere deep down, there was still a caring teacher: Mrs. K recognized that Bart had studied for the test and gave him the extra point needed to pass.
Our Grade: C+
Senor Chang
The Greendale Community College’s “Introduction to Spanish” class may have bonded the ragtag study group at the heart of the NBC sitcom Community, but with the totally unqualified “Senor” Chang as a teacher, the adult students were guaranteed to really not learn anything—well, except for “Donde esta la biblioteca?”
Our Grade: C
Walter White
Teaching high school chemistry is a thankless job, and Walter’s (Bryan Cranston) students definitely weren’t as enthusiastic as he was about the wonders of science in Breaking Bad.
So when he was diagnosed with lung cancer, he took his expertise out of the classroom and into an RV—to start his own drug empire, in the hopes of making enough money to provide for his family’s future. To Mr. White’s credit, though, he was successful at teaching former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) something—even if it was how make crystal meth.
Our Grade: C-
Mr. G
Part of teaching is listening to your students, but the prone-to-melodramatics drama teacher Mr. G (Chris Lilley) certainly didn’t do that in Summer Heights High.
When a student he didn’t know died of a drug overdose, he not only wrote a musical about it (sadly, not the first in a long list of musicals with poor taste), but he made the situation all about how him when her parents objected to the script.
Our Grade: D+
Sue Sylvester
McKinley High School’s arts programs didn’t just struggle against budget cuts in Glee; they also had to contend with Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch).
The not-afraid-to-play-dirty cheerleading coach didn’t just have a vendetta against Mr. Schue (Matthew Morrison) and his glee club, but she often bullied members of the student body (as well as a few teachers) in her many attempts to take down the club she despised so much.
Our Grade: D
Mr. Rooks
When Veronica’s (Kristen Bell) favorite teacher was accused of having an affair with a student in Veronica Mars, she used her investigative powers to prove his innocence.
Unfortunately for Mr. Rooks (Adam Scott), Veronica revealed that he did indeed sleep with and impregnate a student—it just wasn’t the one who accused him.
Our Grade: D
Annalise Keating
What started out as a great opportunity for the “Keating Five” to gain first-hand professional experience under a seasoned defense attorney quickly became something else entirely in How to Get Away With Murder.
The tough-as-nails Annalise Keating (Viola Davis) not only encouraged her students to work slightly outside the law to help her win cases (the least of her offences), but she also manipulated her handpicked, guilt-ridden student legal team into covering up her husband’s murder…which still incriminated them in another.
Our Grade: F (As in Fear for Your Lives)
As much as they tried to romanticize the situation, Pretty Little Liars‘ Mr. Fitz (Ian Harding) was absolutely wrong to get involved with his minor-aged student Aria Montgomery (Lucy Hale). That pretty much nullifies any positive qualities he has where other students are concerned because ick.
Our grade: F-
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