^ It really does make a difference when you get a teacher who is enthusiastic and makes the learning fun. Those are the ones who often go above and beyond and instill an interest in the subject. My Fav subject was my English class at my French High-School, but I also had an awesome history teacher that made history feel alive, thus I felt more invested, and to this day, it's one of the reasons why I'm quite into historical fiction.
My high school English teacher had her good points and not-great points. She pushed her personal religion in class (this was pre-Charter of Rights, so technically not illegal in a public school, just unethical). But on the other hand, she sparked an interest in Shakespeare, enough to persuade me to see a live performance (I went into that one cold, as we hadn't studied it in class, and loved it - Twelfth Night). After that, I became a Shakespeare fan - and it's why I prefer a lot of the British actors and historical dramas. Try explaining all this to Dune fans who think Zendaya is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and on top of that she invented bread and metallurgy to create the knife to slice it. My own Dune preferences are a combination of the Lynch movie and the two miniseries.
My own favorite history teacher was the one in college who taught the classical history course I took. It was an introductory course on Greek and Roman history, and he admitted to us that he was more knowledgeable about the Greek content than the Roman. I actually did catch him in a mistake on the Roman stuff (Livia and Tiberius weren't married; she was his mother!). But on the subject of historical fiction, he asked me if I'd ever read anything by Lindsay Davis. I said no, and he let me borrow one of his books (
Venus in Copper). The Falco novels are basically Sam-Spade-meets-late-1st-century-Rome in the reign of Vespasian. The protagonist is Marcus Didius Falco, private informer (aka private detective) who took on jobs of the sort that any TV detective would, plus some more... discreet... work for the Imperial family (Titus was notoriously slow to pay him, though).
Venus in Copper isn't the first book in the series, so after I read it, I decided to read what came before that (had to find out just how Falco managed to get into a relationship with a Senator's daughter, given his own low social status). I ended up taking a deep dive into this series, and a few weeks later in the course, after I mentioned this to the teacher, we had a conversation that still gives me a laugh (this was 30 years ago!). It was the beginning of class, I came in, and he asked, "So what did you think of the part when she had the baby?" (referring to the Senator's daughter, Lady Helena Justina).
I hadn't read that far. I said, "She had a baby?"
He promptly said, "Oops! Sorry!" He hadn't intended to let any spoilers out.
The rest of the class was mostly in the room by that point, and were staring at us, wondering wtf we were talking about. It sounded like we were discussing a soap opera!
He really made that class fun (he told us at the beginning, "History is FUN!"). Some people didn't believe that, and those were the ones who were taking the class for easy credit, and weren't really that interested. For me, it was wonderful, because there was so much I didn't know about Greek history, and while I did already know a lot of the Roman material he covered (I've been a Roman history fan ever since seeing I, Claudius in the '70s), there was still quite a bit of material new to me. This is what got me started seriously collecting historical novels, plus the Penguin editions of Tacitus, Suetonius, and others. I've even got a few books on learning Latin, though I haven't tackled that yet. Some people think I'm insane for intending to do this, but Latin isn't something I had a chance to learn in school. I think it's a whole other thing if you
want to learn it, rather than being forced to learn it.
Sorry to hear about your Dad's battle with dementia. That is a horrible way to go. I had a Grandmother that went the same way, and by the time she was really deep into it, not only would she not recognize anyone, she would become aggressive, which was really hard to witness as she was not normally an aggressive person, but I hear dementia can do that to a person. But we have to take the positive moments we've had with them, and it sounds like your Dad really instilled a love of science with the way he supported you.
My dad and grandfather approached my interests in very different ways. My dad never once told me, "You can't do that because you're a girl." My own teachers and classmates couldn't fathom my interest in science fiction, and they thought I was downright nuts because I'd read astronomy books for fun. Back when I was 12-13, I'd discovered the school library's copy of
The Concise Atlas of the Universe, and I spent
months reading and studying that. By the time the astronomy unit came along in Grade 8 science, I knew about the life cycles of the different types of stars. The teacher asked us what we thought of when we heard the word "astronomy" and when I uttered the words "stellar evolution," you could hear a pin drop. Then someone said in a disapproving tone, "
Evolution?".
This was in the mid-1970s. County school. Mostly rural kids. Parents always voted Conservative because their parents always voted Conservative and so did their grandparents. And in the other direction, I suspect my former classmates carefully indoctrinated their own kids and grandkids in the dictum that "You will always vote Conservative and hate anyone named Trudeau." And don't talk about stuff like
evolution. FFS, the biology textbook we used in Grade 10 had a disclaimer
apologizing because the authors were "required" to discuss evolution and didn't want to offend any readers.
Anyway, the teacher opted not to make a fuss about that, and assigned us to write a term paper about "anything in the solar system." Of course everyone else promptly started arguing over who would get the library books about which planet first, and I decided not to get into that. I figured the Sun is part of the solar system, so I'd write about the Sun. I had no competition for the books either in the school library or the public library, and I had a couple of books at home with articles I could use. My great-aunt was also supportive of my interest in science, science fiction, and writing, and gave me a beautiful huge book with Reader's Digest articles about things like astronomy and penguins (the penguin article would come in handy a few years later when I wrote a term paper about them).
My grandfather, on the other hand, was about patriarchy. He told me I wasn't entitled to my own opinions until I was married, and then my opinions would be whatever my husband's opinions were. That caused a lot of arguments, as my grandfather was okay with my working in the theatre once. But after that? He didn't think it was appropriate.
Well, screw that. I worked backstage in musical theatre, and when you attend enough rehearsals and have the ability to play by ear (organ, for me; we discovered when I was 7 that I had this ability), you learn a
lot of songs. My grandmother was especially happy about the songs I learned when we did Kiss Me, Kate and The Sound of Music. She loved waltzes, and there were some really nice ones in those shows.
My dad, whenever I asked his advice about something, would always start out by asking, "What do YOU think about it?/What do YOU want to do?" He never told me what to think. He did help me learn
how to think about some things. As for the theatre, he liked music, and would happily whistle along if he liked a song I was playing on the organ. His favorites were the Irish Rovers songs I learned. And years later after I started working on the backstage crews at the new arts centre at the college, he couldn't be happier when I came home one day and announced that they'd taught me how to use an electric sander in the scene shop.
That was for a Shakespeare play - A Midsummer Night's Dream. They needed plain broomsticks, and the only ones available were painted. My job was to sand the paint off and find some actual twigs to make the sort of brooms that witches used. Well, this was in March, it was still winter, and the twigs around were still buried in the snow.
Except... we had a couple of bushes in the front yard. Caragana bushes. Very prickly things, even when bare in winter. I figured that was the best I could manage, so I took the hedge clippers and trimmed off about a boxful of it to use to make brooms. The bus driver was suspicious when I got on the bus carrying a large box of twigs. He wanted to know if I was bringing an animal on the bus. I told him no, since the twigs were really prickly and no animal would want to be in there with them.
Those bushes turned out to be therapeutic a few years later. I named them George, so whenever I was annoyed by what I heard on the nightly news, I could take the clippers and cut George Bush down to size.
Interesting that you mentioned Phil Currie, as I also have a story to share related to him. I think I've mentioned before having an Uncle who's a paleontologist. He and Phil Currie were well-acquainted. As it happened, he was going to be giving a lecture at our local science centre and had really been looking forward to it. My Uncle's Mother, ie, my Grandmother (not the one above) happened to have passed away, and I actually emailed Phil to express my disappointment that I wouldn't be making it out due to the funeral being that same day, then he passed on his condolences to my Uncle.
Wouldn't you know, I had actually met several times and gotten to know David Levy which the comet is named after? Both he and his wife were very prominent comet hunters, and the telescope he used to discover it will be part of an exhibit at a telescope museum in Toronto.
Well, I'm envious of that.
I was able to take an astronomy course at the college, in the year when Hale-Bopp came around. I happened to look up one night when a friend dropped me off at home, and there it was, up in the sky, plainly visible. I was so excited that later when I went shopping, I must've told everyone in the checkout line about the comet, and the next class we had, I was practically bouncing when I told the prof that "I saw Hale-Bopp last night! It was
beautiful!" He said he was happy for me, and I think he was pleased to have an enthusiastic student. Again, this was a class that most of the students took because they considered it easy credit and didn't have to think too hard about it.
For me it was a chance to learn more about stuff I'd read about in
Astronomy magazine and hadn't really understood very well. As I mentioned, I'm math-challenged. That astronomy class helped clear up a lot of confusion.
Some people are just really good at teaching confusing things. I'm thinking of Brian Cox, talking about the physics of waterfalls. That's something I'd never understood before, either.
It's mindboggling how I could never get her to understand that meteor showers aren't visible in the daylight. Neither are lunar eclipses (yes, some years later I'd stay up for those as well). I eventually argued them into letting me watch the meteor shower as long as I stayed in the yard. I was outside until about 2 am.
). 
