All through school I always had a bad perspective of teachers. I suppose it comes from not having had very supportive teachers. After twelve years in a French system school I was convinced that the French method of teaching was very impersonal. Some teachers told us that they were already educated and paid, so if we didn’t want to learn that was our problem. However looking back at my last two years of elementary schooling I realized that there is one teacher that made not only a difference in my life but of all my classmates as well, by helping us not getting trapped in a mistake made by the school.
When I was in fourth grade we had a teacher for one month, then she had to leave and we spent the rest of the school year going through different substitutes and even the principal had to fill in sometimes. This was disastrous to us. We didn’t move forward and by the end of the year we were behind and confused. The administration decided we were all passing into 5th grade even though we clearly did not have the grades for it. This is where I met Mrs. Nicholas.
On top of everything, I started fifth grade a month late because of political problems in the country. I was terrified of going back to school but as soon as I entered the classroom I was sure it was going to be fine. She realized from the beginning that our passage to sixth grade was not guaranteed at the level we were. In that classroom we became a family. We were all on the same boat but we had a leader determined to bring us to our destination. From that point on she did everything she could to help us. She dedicated herself to making sure we would get there. I like to think that we did fourth and fifth grade in one year. She knew it would be a lot of work so she created activities to go along. Each grade had a small garden to take care of and there was a contest that year for the most beautiful garden. We used the garden for learning geometry, multiplication and division, science and even French grammar. She made it so that we didn’t realize the intensity of the work we were doing, having fun at the same time.
By the end of the year we had all caught on to the curriculum, going into sixth and we won the garden contest. She taught me not only how to count, read and write but that if you want something done, you have to work hard at it to get to it. She also showed me that working together as a group and getting along can lead to great things. I don’t think there is another grade where I learned as much as I did in fifth grade. I consider her the one exception to my rule concerning the French system. I will always be grateful to Mrs. Nicholas for what she has done for us.
-- Melissa Boulos, American University