An Influential Teacher
S
teve’s fourth grade teacher, Imogene “Teddy” Hill, had a
lasting influence on his life.
She realized that Steve had a lot of energy that needed to
be channeled into learning. But he was rebellious and often
refused to do his assignments. To gain his interest, Hill bribed
him with candy and money. Once she sparked his interest,
she gave him special assignments like building a camera. In
an interview with the Smithsonian Institute Jobs talks about
the impact Hill had on him:
I had such respect for her that it sort of re-ignited my
desire to learn. . . . I think I probably learned more aca-
demically in that one year than I learned in my life. I’m
100% sure that if it hadn’t been for Mrs. Hill . . . I would
have absolutely ended up in jail. I could see those ten-
dencies in myself to have a certain energy to do some-
thing. It could have been directed at doing something
interesting that other people thought was a good idea
or doing something interesting that maybe other people
didn’t like so much. When you’re young a little bit of
course correction goes a long way.
Smithsonian Institution Oral and Video Histories, “Steve Jobs,” April 20, 1995. http://
americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/sj1.html.
of his classmates and did not relate well to them. His mother
had taught him to read when he was still a toddler. Indeed, he
was already working on electronic projects while his peers were
still learning their ABCs. Jeff Eastwood, one of Steve’s neighbors
and schoolmates explains: “We couldn’t understand what he was
talking about half the time. He’d show me things that I couldn’t
understand with all the electronic gear that he’d taken apart.” 9
His intellectual prowess combined with his desire to set his
own rules led to trouble. He did not obey his teachers if he did
A Difficult Start
17