Mr. Destache is without a doubt the scariest teacher I have ever had the pleasure of being a student of. He is like a drill sergeant with more intimidation.  Mr. D was my middle school math teacher at Swallow School, and the best one I’ve ever had. Without him, I would not have discovered how interesting math really is.
Math was my worse subject. I would be reluctant to go to math. Before math class, my stomach would flip upside down and turn inside out. I would sweat knowing it was my next class. But Mr. D changed that.
Seventh grade I would get giddy to go to math. I would look forward to it every day. Every class before and after it would seem to be double in length. 

There is a tradition at Swallow School to make Mr. D sound terrifying. The seventh and eighth graders would tell the younger kids how scary he is, and how hard of a teacher he is.  Before I was in his class, I would hear stories. The eighth graders on the bus would say things like “He jumps out from behind the door to scare you if you go to the bathroom.” or “He randomly yells at kids for no reason!” or even that one time he threw an eraser at a student.

But in reality none of these things happened.  The only thing he did do was he jumped out from behind the door to be funny. And that’s how he was: hilarious. All of the students would keep the tradition going because it was done to them.

There was so a sigh of relief across the room after he said this first dumb joke. He said jokes like “Do you wear those pants to church?” …”No?”... “Because they are holey!” and “If you are cold, stand in the corner.” The class would ask why and Mr. D would respond “It’s 90 degrees.” He always had a joke up his sleeve, no matter the day, no matter the subject. Always a bad joke. He knew when to pull one out. If class was getting boring he would rope the students back in to keep them engaged and awake.

His method of teaching was, in one word, fantastic. He has been teaching longer than I have been alive. He understands how kids learn. Mr D. knows every trick in the book. He would have us get out of our seats and turn around to each angle to help us remember where they were. He told us stories that were long and drawn out but at the end he taught us a lesson. He told us about the time he went to Canada while he was in high school and didn’t know the conversion from kilometers per hour to miles per hour so they just went the speed in miles per hour. Of course he was going 70 miles per hour in what should have been a 45 miles per hour area. He got pulled over and got a ticket but the lesson was that math was important in the real world and that we should use it in our daily lives.

Mr. Destache taught my older brothers, he taught me, and he even taught some of my other teachers. He is a fantastic influence on his students and I still use what he taught me in his class everyday.

His teaching methods, bad jokes, and his real life examples all make me know that he is a great person who cares about his students and the people around him.