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Discuss a teacher who had a positive influence on your life. What did he/she do that was influential for you?
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My middle school history teacher. I was introverted by nature and did not like to get up and stand in front of others to speak. She encouraged me to participate in a student government program where we went to the State Capital and debated student written bills. I found a love for talking and debating with others. This gave me confidence to both stand firm in what I believe and taught me to talk with those that disagree with me in a loving way. I now preach on a semi-regular basis and the ability to stand before crowds and share about God is in a large part due to my middle school history teacher taking a few moments to challenge me to step outside of my comfort zone.
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Miss DeYoung was my fourth-grade teacher. She made school so much fun for us. She also cared so much for us and wanted all of her students to succeed. I was an average student. My big downfall was test taking. I would get so nervous during tests, and I would over think everything. Miss DeYoung talked to me about this, and she let me know I was not alone. That we had several students in our course who struggled with tests too. So… what she started doing was, she would have the group of 4-5 students go out in the hallway. She would go over the notes for whatever test we were taking, and she would pray with us. She would ask God to calm our fears, and she would ask God to give us recall of what we had studied. This helped me tremendously. In fact, it’s still something I do to this day.
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Miss Bloom was my high school Creative Writing teacher. My parents were getting a divorce that year. It had a devastating effect on my life. She had us write on a variety of topics throughout the year in our personal journals. She would then respond to what we wrote. I’m fairly certain that the prompts focused on divorce were for me and a couple other classmates that were struggling at home. She was intentional with trying to connect with us. That journal was almost like counseling for me through a very difficult time in my life. She was one of the very few people that actually “saw” me and wanted to know my perspective on such a difficult personal experience.
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One of my teachers that had a great influence on me was Mr. D. I went through preschool through high school at a Christian school and he always took the extra time to help me understand what was being taught. The other important thing that sticks out to me about Mr. D is his love for Christ! And all that he did he focused it around Christ math reading science whatever it might be he was always bringing christ into the classroom Bible verses were everywhere he would “then he would have us memorize them.
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I went to a private middle school in NYC. It was academically rigorous and culturally, very committed to providing a place where students could grow. The teacher that had the biggest impact on me was Mr. Carrasco. I would guess he was in his mid-20s. His style was very much a NY Hip Hop kind of guy. None of the other teachers really seemed like people we could become in the future but in Mr. Carrasco, we saw our future selves. He was great and a huge influence on me.