I Can't Just Pick One Beloved Teacher!

Family Search's question for September 9th was: Who was your most beloved teacher? Why?

Well, because education has been such an important part of my life, I can't pick one, so I'm going to talk about three.

I'll start with  my third grade teacher Kathy Hansen. Mrs. Hansen had been teaching for a long time by the time I came to her classroom. She had teenage children when I was her student. She was just so kind and loving, and had the perfect personality to teach 9 year olds. She had these classroom dollars that we could earn on our assignments and classroom jobs. At different times throughout the year she would hold an auction where our classroom dollars could be used. If I remember correctly, the auctions usually were around the holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. She also had a classroom game of hangman up on the board. When we behaved well as a class, or the majority of us did well on a test or assignment, we could guess a letter. If we got too out of hand she would erase a letter. The word(s) usually spelled out some type of treat, activity, or party that we would get once we figured out the word or phrase. I've kept in contact with her over the years. She doesn't teach 3rd grade anymore. She was the Assistant Principal at one point, and now I believe she works at the district, or has retired.

My sixth grade teacher, Lorri Bunce is next. Mrs. Bunce taught a

5th/6th grades combination class. There were 20 5th graders and 10 6th graders when I was in her class. It was really interesting being in that kind of class. Some lessons was everyone, while others we were split into our grade level and either got Mrs. Bunce teaching us or we had to work by ourselves - that required a lot of self-control and ability to work on our own and teach ourselves, so only students who could handle that kind of environment could be in this class. One thing Mrs. Bunce

is known for is having her students write and "publish" a book. We write a story, type it up, illustrate it, sew these giant pages together and then use cardboard, fabric, and glue to make a hardcover that holds the book together. The 5th graders made an alien in their art class and wrote their story about their alien, and the 6th graders' stories took place in Ancient Egypt. If we wanted, we could make two copies and leave one with Mrs. Bunce to show future students. I chose to make two, and years later found out that my book was one of the ones she chooses to show her new students every year when introducing the project! I'm glad she liked it, because I recently reread it, and I'm super embarrassed by it. Mrs. Bunce retired a few years ago and served a couples mission in South Korea with her husband. She now is a weight loss coach. I am also still in touch with her.

My high school English teacher, Albert Ricci, and my high school ballroom coach, Angela Williams I have already written about in previous posts, so I'll just give them an honorable mention here.

The third teacher that I want to talk about is Christie Nozawa. Mrs. Nozawa was my high school Chemistry teacher. I came into her class a week late because I had first attempted physics (which I had only taken so that I could be in the same class as the guy I was trying start to date at the time - bad idea, neither worked out). On the first day of her class she has her students take a math test, if you get below an 80% she recommends that you do not take chemistry because it will be too hard. I got exactly an 80% and didn't think I could take chemistry. I told my counselor that I should just take earth science (a freshman class that upper class-men could only take if there was no way they could pass the other science classes). Mrs. Nozawa told me to  give her class a try, she was sure that I would do just fine. I loved her class. Was I perfect at it? No. But I found most of the subject matter interesting, and I loved the lab experiments. She collaborated with the chemistry department at BYU, and BYU students came on certain days after school to tutor the high school chemistry students. I stayed after every time they did that. After each test had been graded, Mrs. Nozawa would write the scores up on the board - no names -  and drew a line to separate the 90s and above, the 80s-89s, and the rest. Those who got above a 90 could get a big candy bar, 80, a little one, 70 or below, motivation to work harder. My goal was to always be on the 90s line, it didn't always happen, but it helped me work hard. At the end of the school year Mrs. Nozawa called me into her office and said, "Weren't you so worried at the beginning of the year that you wouldn't do well? Take a look." She points to all four terms: A's for each term. Yeah, I totally freaked myself out for no reason. But those weren't easy A's! I worked my butt off for my straight A's. I didn't stay in contact with Mrs. Nozawa. I've run into her twice since graduating. But I will never forget what she taught me about hard work and self confidence.