The guy that wrote the book "Flowers for Algernon" was Daniel Keyes. He was also my teacher for a fiction writing class I took in college. He pissed me of totally at the time, but in hindsight his straight shooting helped me to improve my writing like never before. I would imagine it would be like playing football for Bear Bryant. You might curse and fear him while under his wing........But down the road, you realize how much he really helped you to recognize your weaknesses and improve and never quit.
Nice story. My creative writing teacher was like that, hated it at the time but learned some very valuable lessons from her..