May Question: Teacher Appreciation Time!

Did you know that this is Teacher Appreciation Week? If you know a teacher, be sure to tell them “thank you.” They are incredible people! 

We didn’t have teacher appreciation events when I was in school, and maybe you didn’t either. So let’s do a shout out to our favorite teachers

Maybe it was your second-grade teacher, maybe it was Professor Minerva McGonnagall! Maybe there is more than one …

Whether it is someone you’ve known in your life or someone you met in the pages of a book, the choice is yours! Introduce them to us [in the comments] and we’ll all celebrate!

Thank You, Miss Sauder!

Miss Sauder was my seventh grade Language Arts teacher at Arbutus Junior High School. I was already a reader by the time I entered her class, but I became a more curious learner that year. In our spring quarter, we were studying parts of speech and how to parse sentences. There were lots of worksheets and diagrams … most everyone hated it.

Except me. Grammar was just. so. cool. It was like taking apart a watch piece by piece, learning how each one worked and how each piece fit together. [A grammar geek was born.]

Miss Sauder fed my curiosity about language and usage. Not only did she let me do extra work, but in the process, she opened my eyes to learning by “digging deeper” to figure out how things connect. The backstory, if you will. 

And Then Came Sister Eileen …

When I was in Sister Eileen’s 9th grade English Class at Charleston Catholic HS, she was celebrating 25 years as an educator and nun. We most definitely weren’t the first group of teens to whine about having to read Romeo and Juliet (among other classic works) but we did it anyway. 

What I remember most about her class was our weekly vocabulary work. I can still see our workbook: white with green letters on the front cover, and tear-out pages. Most of us were taking Latin I, so Sister Eileen used the opportunity to help us connect words with their ancestral roots. She would remind us – often! – that she was preparing us for college, where we needed to have broad, strong vocabularies. 

She prepared us well! Broadening my vocabulary has made me a better writer. It also helps when I’m doing crossword puzzles! At least twice a week I trip over words that I specifically remember learning in her class.