Our Storytelling series on favorite teachers continues this week (click here to read previous stories):

Before starting second grade, I heard some horror stories about the teacher I was going to have. I was told she was strict and did not put up with any nonsense. I also heard she was very intense with what she taught -- and that she made sure each kid understood that at any cost.

Well, as it turned out, Mrs. Suvak was my favorite teacher. She was the first teacher who impressed upon me that learning is an adventure and I was cheating myself if I did not dive in head-first.

Mrs. Suvak made learning the three R's a breeze. As for spelling, to this day, I am one of the better spellers in my classes. She taught me how to listen to the word, write the word and then use it in a sentence. With math, she taught that learning numbers, adding, subtracting, multiplying was a lot easier when you enjoy the tasks than when you do not.

With writing, Mrs. Suvak would give the class an example of some cursive letters, and asked us to practice until ours looked like the practice sheet. She made sure the entire class had completed the assignment, and then she would move on.

Mrs. Suvak would always praise me for my neat and careful writing. She was a teacher who believed that praise was very rewarding and needed. To this day, I take pride in my excellent and neat handwriting.

Finally, as for reading -- in Mrs. Suvak's eyes, to read and to enjoy reading was the greatest gift of all.

As second grade was ending, I realized that I would miss Mrs. Suvak. I would also miss her way of teaching, her praise, patience and the fun I had in her classroom. I also knew Mrs. Suvak took a lot of time with us so we would master second grade and be ready to leap into third grade.

As we ended the school year and began swimming at Dormont pool, I overheard some parents saying their kids were going to have Mrs. Suvak. Without hesitation, I said: They are going to love her.

For the next three years at Dormont Elementary School, I always made sure I visited Mrs. Suvak. I feel guilty that I never told her she was my favorite teacher. But something tells me she knew it.

-- MICHAEL DEER, seventh grade, Keystone Oaks Middle School

Her name was Mavis Bridgewater; she'll always be Miss Bridgewater to me.

What an appropriate name, conjuring up an image of that which takes you from one side to the other, while a rush of life flows beneath. She was my art teacher at Langley High School in the late 1960s.

When I entered her classroom in those years of social change and counterculture influence, her rather stern, conservative appearance belied her true nature. I soon came to know her as one of the most free-spirited, open-minded people I've ever met. Yes, she was an artist, but far beyond that, she was a great teacher of art.

Beginning in early boyhood, I had always loved to draw. I started with popular cartoon characters of the day, and eventually branched off into trying to accurately replicate on paper everything around me. As time went by, I was lucky enough to end up in Miss Bridgewater's classroom.

Miss Bridgewater's genius was her ability to take a student at any level of skill or talent and build upon it. Perspective is very important. A person can draw anything and try to make it realistic. Miss Bridgewater sat beside me and told me to look straight ahead at eye level. This established a vantage point on the wall in front of me.

What made her very special were the times she would sit beside me and share her own artistic perceptions. I had a moustache and longish hair. She once showed me a piece written by an artist, which described the beauty of a full beard; it said that to trim or shave any part of it was a mutilation of perfection.

I learned of simplicity when she told me that the comic strip "Peanuts" was much better artistically than the intricately drawn "Prince Valiant" because it was far more expressive.

I can never fully describe all that I learned from Miss Bridgewater. She taught me so much about art, but more miraculously, vastly changed my visual perception of the world around me.

I don't know if Miss Bridgewater is still alive. If she is, I want her to know that I've had a full beard since leaving high school.

-- GEOFF REIDELL, Crafton