My Favourite Teacher ~ Here's to you Miss Anderson!

Inside the minds of every prospective teacher is an image of the teacher they wish to become.  Often this image is a portrait of a teacher they once had; one who made them fall in love with school and the teaching profession.  For myself, every time I close my eyes and picture the teacher I wish to become I picture Miss. Anderson.

I think of myself as very fortunate to have grown up in the community of Manitou, as I was blessed with being educated by so many irreplaceable teachers; Mr. Thorleifson, Mr. Mutcheson, Mrs. Amy-McElroy, Mrs. Matchullis, Mrs. Holliston, the list continues on.  However, there is one teacher that stands above them all in my memory, for she was the one who first inspired me to take on becoming a teacher as my life goal.

Miss. Anderson was the teacher you heard about all elementary school.  She was the one who allowed her class to play computer games, use popcorn makers at school, and even paint a life size dinosaur outside on the blacktop.  She taught grade five, and I anticipated her class with every passing summer.  Finally the time came when I was in the fifth grade and I was so excited to be a part of her adventures. 

Miss. Anderson loved her job, which was easily evident as soon as you met her.  She always wore a huge smile, a messy Miss. Frizzle bun in her hair, and those coke bottle lense glasses.  Every morning she was at school before most of us were even up, and in the evenings when we would play at the playground after supper we would always see the light on in her classroom.  In the later fall when it got too cold out after just a short evening soccer game, we would all go knock on the window of her classroom, and hope Miss. Anderson would let us in.  She always unlocked the school door and let us come play on the computers, or help her get set up for the next days events.  When it would start to get dark out, she'd tell us we should probably head home, but we'd always see her there the next day.

Everyday Miss. Anderson strived to make learning fun and memorable.  She bought the computer game "Math for the Real World" which we would beg her to play all the time.  I'm sure over half of the students in my class asked for it for Christmas that year.  The crazy thing was, it was a hard game.  You had to use fractions, multiplication, division, everything you need to know for early years math.  Still, we all loved it.  Miss. Anderson's classroom was lined with cupboards full of stuff for math and science, and counters overflowing with plants and books.  Being creative, she painted all the cupboards with chalkboard paint, so that each student would have their own personal chalkboard.  Everyday we would each get to sit at our own cupboard and try to work out a word problem that Miss. Anderson would read to the class.  We all got to move around, and try something different, which made us so excited we didn't even feel like we were working. 

The environment was very important to Miss. Anderson, so every year her class organized a bake sale on Earth Day.  The highlight was that the morning of the bake sale the grade fives got to spread around the school and pop brown paper bags full of popcorn machine popcorn to sell.  She made us feel proud, and as though even though we were just eleven years old we were really doing something to help make our world a better place.

She was more than a teacher though, she was also a friend.  You could tell Miss. Anderson anything and she would just sit and listen, then try to help you as best as she could.  She never judged, yelled, or made you feel stupid if you didn't understand something.  It was all the little things she did that let you know she really did care about you.  One of these little things took place during the months of May and June.  Everyday students would leave school for half hour periods throughout the day to walk to the outside pool for swimming lessons.  It was not always the warmest out, so most of us usually walked back to school with blue lips.  When we got back to our grade 5 room Miss. Anderson always had hot chocolate sitting on the counter, just in case we needed it.

I'm twenty two years old now, but I still remember many of the small gestures Miss. Anderson did to help me get excited about school at the age of ten.  She loved her job, and left such a lasting impression on each student she met.  In 2006 when I graduated highschool, our class decided that we wished for her to be our guest speaker.  We were saddened to discover that Miss. Anderson had gone almost completely blind and was having trouble gettting around.  She wished us all the best, but she said had to decline our offer.

She was an amazing person, and to say she was just my favourite teacher is a great understatement; she was my inspiration to become involved in this great profession.  Miss. Anderson is my proof that teaching really is the best job created.

If I can one day be "Miss. Anderson" to one of my students, I will feel as though I truely was a good teacher.  I wish to help my students develop a love for learning and school, to find fun in every lesson, and to be their friend.