By far my favorite teacher at Arrowhead High School has to be my biology teacher: Mr. Gregg Bisbee. I had had an awful introduction to biology in my honors biology class; I had an awful teacher and a very poor learning experiences. I switched out of honors and went to normal biology second semester, hoping I would receive better instruction and a greater understanding of biology in a different class.

The first day of class second semester, Mr. Bisbee sat by the door of his classroom, studying his new pupils; I guess he was trying to analyze which students would be troublemakers. Oh, and did I mention he was petting a snake the whole time? It was just like the evil characters in the James Bond movies, sitting at their desk, stroking the snow white cat cradled in their arms the whole time. Except this was Mr. Bisbee: an energetic biology enthusiast in a lab coat with a corn snake entwined in his arms.

When the bell rang, he began to slowly stroll around the room, studying his new prey. His inquiring eyes twinkled as he glanced around the class, a small smile on his bearded face, doing the classic Bisbee nod. Just by looking at him, I could tell that Mr. Bisbee would be a great teacher; he seemed like he would be a person who always had a positive outlook.
And the class progressed from there. I quickly found out Mr. Bisbee had a great sense of humor, and he used it to its full extent to make learning fun. We always had fun labs, like making marshmallow creatures and their offspring for our genetics unit, and deducting what would be the best crop to use as renewable energy for our natural resources unit. Even when we weren’t in the lab, we had interesting class discussions with Powerpoints with amazing sound effects to keep people tuned in.

Mr. Bisbee always took his time to make sure everybody understood every concept in detail; he was not afraid to spend a couple of extra minutes to instruct a single student in need of help. He tried his hardest to make sure everyone succeeded and prepared us for college learning. Even if you weren’t the best student, he offered multiple extra credit opportunities, such as mapping the location of road kill and clearing brush in parks in the local community to help raise your grade.

To put it simply, Mr. Bisbee got me interested in science. He made biology fun, interesting, and exciting—something my previous teacher failed to do. I couldn’t wait to get to class first and second hour on A-days that semester. Previously, I would never have imagined myself liking science, but now I sign up for every science class available. Science is now my favorite subject in school, and it is all because of Mr. Bisbee.