As I leave those adolescent years behind and mature into a young adult I am able to see my mother with a new perspective. She is not just the woman who taught me right from wrong, but she is a woman who along with impacting my life has been able to impact many of those around her.
I have gone to my mother’s school with her since I was in elementary school. My mother taught in a private catholic school, which gave her advantages that public school teachers might not have. One of these advantages was the ability to take me to school with her when I was sick or had the day off. The days that I would attend school with her I would sit in the back of the classroom and watch her teach middle school students. In between classes her students would approach me and tell me how lucky I was for having such a cool mom. I could never believe their remarks until I saw her interact with them one on one.
During recess, at lunch, after school, pretty much at any free time they have there is a student in my mother’s classroom. The students sometimes might be receiving extra help, but a lot of the time they are there to talk to her about some aspect of their lives. When I was in middle school I had my mother as my English teacher in sixth grade. We were living in Argentina and I was attending a small international school. There were about eighty students in each grade and most of them had my mother as their teacher for some subject. It was during these years that I realized how open students feel when conversing with my mother. I would walk into her classroom and find her having a discussion with one of my classmates about their new crush or about their parents fighting.
The most inspiring incident happened when I was in fifth grade. One of my mother’s students, Rob, came to live with my family for a few weeks. One of Rob’s younger twin brothers had just passed away and his mother was having trouble coping with his death. When Rob’s mother asked if he could stay with us for a while my mother agreed knowing the instability that the family was going through. After Rob’s stay at my house my mother would go visit the family frequently after school to make sure they were doing well. This event alone shows the dedication and compassion my mother has for her students.
As I continue with my education courses I hope that I can accomplish as much as my mother has at being a teacher. Besides having her students respect and trust her, my mother is able to motivate them to achieve success in and outside of school.
-- Michelle Mutone, American University