Senior Citizens: Do you remember any one bit of good advice given to you by a teacher?

Three of my teachers earnestly and confidentially told me that life is short and not to waste any time. The same info from three different sources. Who didn't know each other. So you'd think I would have figured that maybe it was true. But somehow I didn't pay much attention.

I had a shop teacher when I was in seventh grade that always made a point of the importance of working safely. He was showing us how to adjust the tool rest on a grinding wheel and that there should never be more than 1/8" gap. Otherwise, what you are grinding could be caught in-between the wheel and the tool rest - pulling your hand with it. Later on that year he was grinding something and the gap was too great. The piece was pulled into the wheel along with his thumb. What an ugly mess ... he didn't follow his own instruction and it cost him dearly. I guess there couldn't be a better lesson than that because, after 50 years, I still remember him every time I use power equipment.

I had a geometry teacher in high school who kept driving into our heads the importance of being absolutely accurate when constructing anything that requires the use of geometry. She gave us the dimensions of a triangle one morning that she wanted us to construct. When we were finished she had a draftsman's triangle of the same size and went to each student and placed that triangle over what was drawn. I can still hear her shrill voice when one of the students told her that their drawing was only a little bit off. She made it clear to us this is unacceptable. If we were working on building a skyscraper and were just a little bit off, how far would the building lean when completed? I have never forgotten this and I guess that was what made me a "perfectionist" whenever I build something. I was a moldmaker for most of my life and machined new molds and repaired damaged molds used in constructing glass containers. My philosophy was when I was finished with the repairs on the various mold parts the they would be exactly like a new one. This is impossible but that was my goal. I became a master of mold repair and I guess I need to thank Ms. Coombs for that.

Yes and I heard a priest give the same advice to some young boys (No jokes please)

"If you are unsure whether or not an action is good or bad, ask yourself this question: Would my Mother be proud of me if I did this? If the answer is No then don't do it. "

The same teacher in another mood often used to say," Boys remember the 11th commandment, Don't get caught." I was often caned for as he used to say," being silly enough to get caught."

We had one teacher who was always watching to see if she could catch

any of us sneaking a kiss. She always said kissing led to other things.

Mrs Butler. She always wore those dressed with little flowers and wore the black high heels that laced. She was chubby. She was also the algebra teacher. If she caught you in the hall you knew she was going to give you another lesson in class in front of everyone. You made sure you didn't get caught by Mrs Butler. She almost made it a sex education lesson, with you or who ever she caught as an example. I have been out of school a long time but if you mention her name that is the first thing we all remember. Her verbal lesson on what kissing led to.

The only good advice was from a spinster history teacher who was probably about 30. She told us not to go to an all women's college. Poor woman, she had been to a girls' school, then a women's college at Oxford and ended up teaching in a girls' school with no male teachers. We felt sorry for her, because we had all had encounters with males of the species by then.

Most of the advice I ever heard from teachers seemed to come from another era.

Our form teacher once told us that she had seen something disturbing the previous evening. A 14 year old pupil holding hands with a BOY! Someone in the class said, 'It's better to hold hands because then you know where they are'.

The worst advice I ever had was from my headmistress. I had had an altercation with my French teacher and she reported me to the Head.

She told me that I should try to get on with my French teacher because of what I could 'get out of her'.

I took the moral high ground and replied, 'I think that is a very bad reason for trying to get on with someone'.

Boudicca: Fantastic! My geography teacher told me the same about Geography 'O' level. I got a credit! Mind you, when she said she wasn't going to enter me for 'O' level Geography, I did say, 'That's your decision. I'll get my father to enter me privately'. Since Dad was on the Board of Governors, she entered me.

I was advised to not put all my eggs in one basket which turned out to be good advice particularly when I was choosing my subjects for my GCSE's because I only needed maths and English back then to go into Nursing, but I chose to do Secretarial Studies too which I needed when I had to give up nursing.

I've used that bit of advice over the years for all manner of different situations too.

I will never forget what one teacher told us more than once. He would caution us to not become "The Man With The Hoe", a famous poem by Edwin Markham. It was inspired by the Millet painting "L'homme a la houe". The labor of humanity.....receiving little rest or reward is the theme and this teacher wanted us to rise to our true potential in life. I guess one could say that he was looking out for us.

On the other side of the coin, my Shorthand and Typing teacher told me I would never get a job, as I was too slow. I proved her wrong. I bought a very cheap typewriter from a junk shop and practiced and practiced until my speeds were high and easily got a job.

In an all girls school we were taught to be extremely ladylike, walk with head held high and light on our feet. If you thuded or thumped the teacher would say "You are like a bull in a china shop"..all my life the thought of that makes me very conscious and always trread carefully.

My fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Stubbs, and it wasn't so much what she said, but what she did. I'm pretty sure I was borderline obsessive-compulsive (though it wasn't called that then). I was into counting things and there had to be a certain number of stairs, or pages, for example, or I was uncomfortable. I would suck on the inside of my lip or cheek compulsively. She was wonderful. Once she told me she had noticed this about me, all she had to do was give me "that look" whenever she caught me acting out one of my little activities, and I would immediately stop. I think she broke a lot of those habits. Bless her heart for caring.