Throughout my learning career, I have had the opportunity to learn from every one of my teachers. From some, you learn the finesse it takes to deal with intelligent children, and from others you learn about respect, persistence, and patience it takes to deal with difficult children. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Chwalik, taught me the important aspects of reaching all of the children in the classroom. My third grade class was a "salad bowl" of students from every walk of life, with very different behaviors and ways of learning. I was always well behaved, but there was one child who consistently misbehaved. Rather than isolating him and giving him the label of "the bad kid in class," she partnered the two of us together for a project. Being the model student that I was, I couldn't believe that I had to work with him, and I hardly spoke to him the first day we had to work together. After class, I pleaded with Mrs. Chwalik to put me with a different partner, but she insisted that I could manage just fine with the one I had. As the week went by, I learned more about my "bad" partner and we slowly adapted to each other. He learned from me that it was important to try your best in class and on projects, and I learned to have more respect for people who are different from me. We finished our project without any major infractions, and got one of the best grades in the class. Even though I didn't like my partner at the time, I now know that by pairing us together Mrs. Chwalik was trying to get a little bit of each of us to rub off on the other. Without her direct influence she was able to show me that no one deserves to be labeled as "bad" without being given the chance to be "good." As an adult, that lesson has carried with me, and it will be something that I look forward to teaching the students in my classroom.
-- Saffron Brown, Florida Atlantic University