Someone I Admire

Among the teachers I have encountered through my school life, Mrs. Smith is the one that I most admire. She was one of my English teachers in junior high. In contrast to other teacher's apathy, her vitality always refreshed the atmosphere in our classroom. Moreover, her enthusiasm and thoughtfulness warms my heart to this day.

Mrs. Smith's charisma won everyone's appreciation soon after she began teaching us. Since she was not our first English teacher, everyone had a skeptical eye on her in our very first class. Sensing our doubts, she began the class with a guessing-people game. She asked us to write down characteristics about ourselves on a small piece of paper, which was read aloud to the class as a clue to identify the person. We had great fun that day due to her ingenuity to grasp what we wanted. Afterwards, the contempt students used to hold toward her was nowhere to be found.

The energy and passion Mrs. Smith possessed when teaching was unbelievable. The more days she spent with us, the more I noticed a distinctive quality of hers that truly amazed me. No matter what the weather was like and how she was feeling, she was always in high spirits when she entered the classroom, as if she was ecstatic to see us. Besides, she encouraged us to interact with her; therefore, the class was by no means serious and tense, but very enjoyable and inspiring.

Mrs. Smith used clever techniques to arouse our interest in learning English. Quizzes are an indispensable element of a class, but Mrs. Smith added them with her own illustrations to make them more fascinating. She also printed many handouts, adorned with her amusing drawings, to provide the information missing in the textbook for us. In short, she had the magic to transform something painstaking into something pleasurable. Furthermore; she introduced lots of English songs to us in her class. Whenever we started a new lesson, she would come up with songs whose themes or lyrics were related to what we were learning. The songs were so fantastic that everyone took delight in listening to them and enhancing our vocabulary from the lyrics. Through her instruction, my love for English that year was resurrected.

The consideration Mrs. Smith showed us outside of the classroom was moving. The third year of junior high was difficult to most of us, for studying was the only proper thing we could in order to prepare ourselves for high school. Exhausted from the schoolwork, some students were extremely depressed. Mrs. Smith perceived their low spirits and encouraged students to go to her office and talk about their problems. Incredibly, she became the spiritual pillar of the class. Moreover, she intervened in disputes among students and cheered for us in every tournament at sports meets. Another unforgettable thing she did was write a card for every student at Christmas. I was close to tears when she handed the card to me, for no other teacher had ever treated me with the consideration that she did.

Mrs. Smith has created the model of an excellent teacher to me. Her teaching skills and attentiveness are etched eternally in my mind. Now when I teach students, I strive for devoting the best of my patience and effort in honor of her.