Given the powerful influence of past school experiences on the ways in which future teachers decide to teach, it is important to help preservice teachers more deliberately and critically explore the implications of those influences. This study grew out of an assignment in which 38 secondary education majors were asked to describe high school teachers they remember as being their favorite teachers and their most effective teachers. There was some overlap between the categories, but more often than not teachers who were considered "favorites" during high school were now seen as having "defaulted on their responsibility to educate and supervise, to open minds and challenge ... students." Although the responses yielded 35 different characteristics of effective teachers, three were dominant: their passion or enthusiasm for both teaching and the subject matter, their concern for the learning of all students, and their knowledge of subject matter.