There are a lot of teachers in my school and students life, who kept me on my toes.

[vectra]

Hello,

These are the lines from a student's answer: 'There are a lot of teachers in my school and students life, who kept me on my toes.'
The question was: 'Have you ever worked for someone or had a teacher who liked to keep you on your toes?'

As the student refers to his teachers at school, and he is no longer a schoolboy, and university teachers, he is at university now, which grammar tense is to be used in his answer?

I have the following options:

There were and there are now a lot of teachers in my life who keep me on my toes.
There have been a lot of teachers in my life, back at school and now at university, who keep me on my toes.

Thank you in advance.

 

[konungursvia]

There have been (if I understand you correctly).