Heiser 1

Jeffrey Heiser
Peter Blair
UWRT 1102-016
2/1/2015
My Favorite Teacher, Mrs. Brown
Youve made a great improvement from when I first met you your freshman year Mrs.
Brown, my high school Honors English teacher was telling me, If I was the teacher who chose
nominees for the Most Improved English Award, you would definitely be the top contestant. It
wasnt the first time she had mentioned something to me about my improvement over the three
years she taught me Honors English from freshman to junior year of high school. She had always
complimented me over the years as she was a teacher who took time with her students. She cared
for her students, mentored her students, and because of this, was even looked up to by some
students. For me, she was my best teacher that Ive ever had to this point in my life. Ironically, if
you would have asked me this same question two or even just one year ago, my opinion would
be totally different of her as a teacher.
It all started freshman year, and the first day of class was a quiz. A quiz that was on
summer reading in which over half the class wasnt prepared for, due to forgetting to read or not
even knowing about the reading in the first place. Unfortunately I fell under the half of class who
was not prepared for the reading. Due to my unpreparedness, my grade as well as my first
impression of this teacher went the same direction.

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Despite how mean it sounds, by many she was considered witch-looking. The reasons
for this are endless, it could be because of the long, dry, curly hair, the big nose, the high-pitched
voice, the wrinkly skin, the weird and scary stories she would sometimes share, her clothing, her
skinny physique, so on and so forth. She had this long, very dry looking hair which looked
identical to witch hair on a Halloween mask. Her nose was shaped like a stereotypical witch
nose, and her high-pitched, shaky voice was the cherry on top. If her physical appearance wasnt
enough to make you think of her as a witch, her dark and gothic clothing mixed with Wiccan
jewelry was sure enough to make anyone think she looks like a witch. Her classroom was on the
second floor and was always felt like you were entering an oven when entering her room. It had
a nasty, musky smell to it, almost like mold. The classroom setup was always different every
semester as she would rearrange both her desk and the students desks quite often. No matter
which way she arranged the desks, it always felt way to overcrowded even though the classroom
was of decent size. There were two windows about six feet from each other on the same wall
facing a main road beside our school. Due to the temperature and broken air conditioning, we
always had the window open through out the year. This made interesting for when it would
rain/snow, or when the extremely loud street-sweeper would drive by, or even the maintenance
people mowing the schools lawn. All of this remained the same as well as my work ethic until
my junior year.
It was the first day of junior year and I walked into the class prepared this time. I was
reading for the summer reading quiz. I aced it with ease. As my junior year went on, I kept this
same mentality when it came to my grades. I turned in everything on time along with my hardest
work ethic on every assignment as well. To sum up my Junior year, it was the best time I had
ever had, along with the best grade I had ever had in any high school English class, a 98. Over

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the years, Mrs. Brown had shown her care for me along with mentoring. She cared that I did so
poorly my freshman year; she cared that I turned in assignments late, she cared that I didnt try
my hardest, she cared about all these things that had to do with me, even when I didnt. If that
doesnt tell you something about her, then I dont know what will. Every time I didnt turn in an
assignment she would pull me aside and talk to me about it. Every time I didnt try my hardest,
she would pull me aside and talk about it. Every time she knew I couldve performed better than
what I displayed, she would always pull me aside and have a chat. At the time, these chats were
annoying and useless and made me so mad and upset. But as time went on and I matured, I
realized what she was doing and how much she was helping me. As I matured, I listened more to
what she was saying, and I picked up on her of inspiration, understanding, and moving on to
make a better me.
These chats would always start with a quote that related directly to the problem she was
having. For example, she would say I have a quote I want you to hear and we can discuss it
afterwards. She would then give me the quote, and make me piece together how it was related
to the problem we were currently having. She would make me list ways I could improve myself,
and ways to prevent this for the future. As time went on, I got more serious about these chats and
started implementing them into my academic work as well as real life too. I could only imagine
how I wasnt the only student who she did this for. There was about seven or eight of us who had
her every year from freshman to junior year, and she had seemed to do the same for them as she
did for me. She kept track of our grades over the years, and brought them all back to us
individually the last day of class as she knew she would be teaching us for AP English our senior
year. She pointed out how my grades had slowly improved as she had her chats with me. We
compared my grades year by year and sure enough she was correct. One by one, she compared

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them, and together we could see that they had slowly yet surely risen. A combination of more
homework being turned in, better test and quiz grades, active participation, and even a little extra
credit contributed to my overall grade as it had changed from an 85 my freshman year, to my 98
junior year.
As a student of hers over the years, I can justify that she is definitely one of the best
teachers I have ever had in my life. Her chats with me changed my life for the better and as I
mature I realized I can transfer theses chats from academics to real life situations as well. She
taught me not only English, but these chats are her teachings that mattered most to me. These
chats taught me more than the school curriculum ever would have. Once you get past her
different traits, personality, and clothing choice, you realize how much of a good person she
really is. She has taught me many lessons over the years that I will never forget. But one lesson
that I learned on my own that she had a heavy influence on, was to never judge a book by its
cover.