A Teacher’s Impact
Leslie Gemarino, 7th and 8th Grade English
“I really wanted to be a journalist, all through high school and college. I was a journalism major, and I wanted to be an anchor on the news. But I got scared. I had a newswriting professor who would just scribble red ink all over my writing to the point where I didn’t have confidence as a writer anymore. I left that major, and that’s how I got on the path to teaching. But I still to this watch the news when I get ready in the morning. I have the news on in the background as I put on my makeup. And as I am hearing news stories, I will look in the mirror and practice what the anchors are saying. Maybe a part of the reason I try to be an uplifting and positive teacher, is because I had this bad experience with one teacher. But there’s this thing called the Five Love Languages. It’s this psychological test to see the five ways that you give love and the five ways you like to receive love. My predominant way that I like to feel love and feel acceptance is words of affirmation. I like to be affirmed that what I am doing is valued and that I am doing a good job. Because that is the way I like to feel safe and loved, it’s also my way of giving love.
[Something I remember] is my third year of teaching, when I taught 7th grade honors English to students in Clear Lake. Some of them were not the most socially “cool” kids in school. And one of them was a young boy named Matt. He had a very hard time in middle school. He was small for his age, and I kept him after class because he clearly had a very bad afternoon. He was so upset. I wanted to make sure that he was alright. I remember him saying that there were few things in his day that he had to look forward to while he was at school. He didn’t really say that my class was one of them. He didn’t use it as a way to compliment me or anything. Those words struck me, as a young teacher, because I wanted my class to be that for a kid like him. That conversation and seeing how he had to survive every day made me realize that I wanted to do my part to make it bearable to survive. I was the opposite of this young man — I loved middle school.
My favorite teachers were my middle school teachers. I had great high school teachers and college professors, but the ones I loved to my bone and made me love learning were my middle school teachers. Maybe it’s a little bit of that positive experience I had from middle school that makes me so positive and happy to still be living in the halls of middle school as a 30-something year old and sharing that love I have for this stage of life with my 8th graders and former 8th graders. I want them to know I am not going to be one of those teachers you never know what you’re going to get. I want them to feel safe.”
