This might sound terrible, but I always sort of admired Snape. People hated him, but he never did anything that was really wrong. He was just mean, which is wrong, but he never did anything truly evil.. at least, not during the time span of Harry's scholarship. He was the mean teacher that I never was. When I first taught, I was much too nice. If one is nice to the wrong group of students, they will hop all over you like sugar-high monkeys on a banana tree. I needed to invite Snape into my heart.
That isn't happening here. I have a bit of Snape in me, finally. When I first taught, I tried to be fascinating and tell my little high-school students all about fascinating ideas and philosophies and theologies and quantum physics, in the naive hope that they would be as enthusiastic about them as I was. A few were interested, but many just took this as an invitation to regard what I said as nonsense.
But this isn't happening here. It's probably in part because Asians are still more deferential towards teachers, but it's also hopefully because of my improved disciplinary skills.