I was put into a private school as soon as I was in Kindergarten. Every year I had a female teacher and their styles never varied a great deal except with a few minor exceptions every year or so. One year though I had an experience that cannot be topped in my books, I walked into eighth grade year and my homeroom and English teacher was a man. For a small private school up north this was really unheard of, especially because he was young and right out of college. He was so full of life and he loved literature so much that it carried out into the class as a whole and we all learned to love reading and writing as much as him. Because having a male teacher was so different for us we paid attention more. Along with that he got us excited about literature because he was excited. We read plays and acted them out, we sang, and he exposed us to many kinds of literature through the arts. He made sure he used experiential learning theory to keep us engaged. He was so involved and he invested real time in my class. He would never give up on a student not matter how many previous teachers pegged them as hopeless. All of his students got at least one thing out of his class and that was rare. It still is rare no matter where one goes. At the end of the year we were sad to be graduating, we wanted to have him as our teacher in high school. He made a connection with us and we had fun learning with him. He made learning something that can be quite vigorous into something that was the highlight of our days. Mr. Patterson did a lot more than teach us, he inspired us. Now as a young woman I am on my way to becoming a teacher, and as I look back on my schooling there are only three teachers that I draw inspiration from and he happens to be one of them.