Who was your favorite teacher at school? Or, if you are still at school, who is your favorite teacher now?

My favorite teacher was a Mr. Hickling (probably long deceased by now). He was my English teacher while I was in 8th grade (13 years old). When I would look at my school schedule for the week, I would always eagerly look forward to his lessons.
So, why was Mr. Hickling my favorite teacher? For 90% of his lessons, all he did was read books to us or sometimes play audio books. So after the mental effort of math, or science or history, it was a welcome relief not to take any notes on a lesson or to take a quiz, but just to sit back, relax and listen to the likes of such authors as Charles Dickens, Shakespeare and Graham Greene.
Some might have thought that this was a waste of time, that Mr. Hickling was encouraging us to be lazy; and that instead of reading to us, he should have been making us learn the intricacies of English grammar; learning how to parse a sentence and so forth. Well, we did have enough lessons on grammar, writing, punctuation etc. It was just that he read books to us during the majority of his lessons! We did not complain!
Mr. Hickling was an experienced teacher, approaching retirement age when he took our class, so he must have had a good reason for doing what he did. And one day he told us what that “good reason” was!
Our teacher said that 80% of what we would learn throughout our lives, we would teach ourselves. A large part of this would be from what we read. So he considered it one of his greatest responsibilities as a teacher to keep our interest alive in books. And, in addition, to expand our interest in books by reading novels and other books that we might not usually consider reading.
That was true! Most kids my age, if we did read anything outside of our schoolwork, might choose to read something like science fiction or suspense fiction. Though he read those kinds of books to us, he did not limit himself or us to what were the popular books of the day, but included many other literature genres too!
What was our reaction? It is true that we may not have previously heard of some of the books he read to us, let alone have chosen to read them for ourselves. Yet, as we listened to such classic works of English literature as “Oliver Twist” or “Brighton Rock” and also lesser-known works, we began to develop an appreciation for, at least, some of them. True to Mr. Hickling’s purpose in reading to us, he was keeping our interest alive in books and broadening our horizons by exposing us to a wide variety of authors and books.
Did that interest last? I cannot speak for my classmates, but, if they are anything like me, then it has! One of my favorite pleasures is to look for something to read online. This is so easy to do because of the wealth of online fiction and other online books so readily available to all of us! And the good news is that at the same time, I am also learning many things from what I read! Mr. Hickling would have been pleased with me, I am sure!
Seeing young children and teenagers glued to their phones or tablets, texting or playing games is an all too common sight these days. I know that times have changed from when I was their age, but I do hope that someone in their life shows them the beauty of reading and learning from books. There is a whole world of fun out there that they are missing out on!