Authored by Dean Julius
Now that we’re at the end of this series of gratitude blogs, I think it would be nice to take a moment to reflect. The thing that I’ve loved most about this Attitudes of Gratitude blog series is that it has been a constant, monthly, reminder to me to find joy in what I, what we all, do—teaching. Sometimes, this can be incredibly challenging. I think we’d all agree that teaching requires a lot of humility and patience, and it takes a lot of time to see the rewards of our labor. We plant seeds, figuratively speaking. We plant knowledge and tend to that knowledge within our students as best we can, but it can take years for us to see how that labor pays off in the kids we teach/have taught. And in a career where we’re often seen as “underpaid and overworked” gratitude for the work we do goes a long way. For me, writing these blogs has been like a lifebuoy during this challenging year of transitions from a COVID to post-COVID environment. This month, we hear from the 8th graders and their thoughts of gratitude for the 8th grade team. I hope you all find as much joy from it as I have.
“I love Dr. Kunzelman’s class; we actually learn while having fun. She is an experienced teacher, and I can tell she knows how to handle us. Plus, she’s really cool 🙂 I know that all the other students think this too. We do these really fun labs in groups, and they test us on our knowledge of the subject.”
“I like Mr. Buckley’s attitude towards learning. You can tell he is very dedicated to what he teaches. Mr. Buckly is also a really nice guy, and you can come ask him about anything.”
“Mr. Cooper is one of my favorite teachers because he is always there offering his support, and he is really good at teaching Math. He’s always checking in and asking how we’re doing, and he does his best to consider what we are going through when it comes to homework and what we do during class. Besides this, he does a great job explaining new mathematical topics and giving good ways to practice math. He is also my advisor, and I have a lot of fun being one of his advisees.”
“Señor Tokarski is just amazing; he’s my favorite teacher of all time. I don’t even need to study that much for his quizzes because of the way he teaches the material. He repeats the vocabulary over and over again, and he makes us read sentences out loud over and over again to help us learn quickly. He keeps the class busy, and he gives us assignments that make us actively use our brains and translate, and it makes us keep our mind active, so we actually learn, and it sticks. He is just amazing! I wish he didn’t have to leave. I know that he really cares for us and wants us to become fluent Spanish speakers. He is way too amazing. I know that wherever he will go, he will have a large group of fans like me.”
“Art class is exciting with Mrs. Irons because it’s fun and improves my creativity.”
“Mrs. Price is a very good teacher because she always helps us whenever we are struggling. We get lots of practice with speaking, and we get to talk about our families in French and other things about our lives. To help us memorize our vocabulary we usually work in groups, and try to say things using those words.”
“I enjoy Mr. Hosler’s class very much because he always tries to make English fun for us, even when whatever we’re learning about seems boring. He also always tries his best to make all his lessons fun and gives us a lot of class discussion time to express our opinions.”
“Mrs. Johnson is one of my favorite teachers because she is very helpful and always understands if you have to be absent from her class. Another thing I like about her is that she is a good teacher and friendly, but still disciplines people.”
“Mr. Rodgers is one of my favorite teachers because he is caring and understanding. He also interacts with all the students and makes them feel comfortable talking with him. Anytime I talk to him, whether I am alone or with friends, we have great conversations.”
“Mr. Cooper’s class is one of my favorites because he does different things to teach us. He gives us lots of examples, and gives us real word examples. Mr. Cooper is also very nice and funny, and it shows that he cares about us.”
“Señor T is one of my favorite teachers this year because he makes sure that we learn as much as we can during the school year. He makes it fun and enjoyable to learn Spanish. We learned so much from him this past year, and I appreciate all of the work that he did for us.”
“Dr. K’s class is really fun because she organizes lots of different activities for us to do. Class varies a lot which helps us learn science topics in lots of different ways. Dr. K is also really nice and helpful when it comes to Science and other things that us students need.”