Anyone happen to know the italian word for teacher?

For some reason every teacher I'd known during my time in Italy was a woman so it was "la maestra" pronounced "mah-E-strah" (the E big to show emPHAsis on that sylLAble). When you were a little kid it was fun to make puns with "la maestra" and "la minestra" (which is soup!). Kids have a different, simple sense of humour!

A less euphonous word for teacher is "insegnante" presumably from the verb "insegnare" = to teach.