Have a story of two polar opposite teachers who drove me forward as a writer.
The first was my English teacher in secondary school who would pull me aside sometimes at the end of class to read the stories that I'd have to do as assignments in front of me. Every time she would say they were really good and would give me advice. The issue was...they were shit. Like really shit. When I was that age, I was in a pretentious phase and thought that purple prose and incoherent plots with a ton of edge were good. Usually, saying the wrong thing to me would be a bad thing right? Well, I'd say otherwise, because the affirmations she gave me inspired me to write. This is especially considering I disliked the subject beforehand.
The second was in college (which is directly after secondary/middle school in the UK). I continued to write the same way, and had a teacher who was fairer. Wasn't harsh, but fair and would tell me my stories were shit when they were...in a nicer way. This made me realise what made good writing and bad writing and when to break the rules and when not to. As a result, my pretentious phase ended and I started writing things that had a point, made sense and began developing a style that wasn't thesaurus abusing. I stopped embarrassing myself and put my voice into my work more often. In fact, the way I write nowadays is the polar opposite of how I used to: quite a lot of simple sentences and neutral words with fifty less syllables.
Without these two teachers, teaching me in the order they did, I wouldn't be where I am today. The first gave me the inspiration to write and the latter improved my writing. If the first was harsher/fairer, I would've never enjoyed writing or English in any capacity. Had the second been too nice, I would not have gotten out of my edgy phase (or would have done so later) and may have failed my course as a result. Without them, I would probably be failing in a science or maths related subject right now, being bored out of my mind because I hate science and maths - which is weird because I like to write science fiction.