I am not going to lie, writing is not my thing. I never had the creativity and endurance to write papers. My junior year was my first year having Mrs. Carnell as a teacher. She was my composition teacher at Arrowhead High School. At first, I was scared. I thought Mrs. Carnell was going to be like all my previous English teachers. But Mrs. Carnell was different; she made sure she personally went to each student and talked to them to see how they were doing on their projects. This was helpful to both me and my classmates because it made us feel like she cared about how we were doing individually.

Not only did Mrs. Carnell help me with my writing, but she also acted like a friend. I could talk to her and not have it be about homework. We could talk about sports (her son Mason and I played football and baseball together) or about what we did outside of school.

Mrs. Carnell and I see each other outside of school and would talk then too. I would see Mrs. Carnell at my baseball games and at my little brother’s basketball games (her youngest son is on my brother’s basketball team). When I would see her at the games, she would say, “Good luck, Mitchell.” If it was my brother playing, she would say, “Hi, Mitchell. How are you doing?”

Mrs. Carnell also let me come into her classes at anytime. Last year, my last class of the day was next to hers. Every day I would stop in her room and say, “Hi, Mrs. Carnell. How are you doing today?” She would usually respond with “Great. How are you today Mitchell?”

Mrs. Carnell is one of the happiest and most joyful people I have ever met. I have never seen her without a smile on her face. When our classes would get distracted from our work, she would say, “Ok class, let's get back to work now.” I have never heard Mrs. Carnell get mad or yell at a student or anyone.

This year, for my creative writing class, we are writing to an educator that we would like to thank and I instantly knew I was going to write to Mrs. Carnell. She impacted my school career the most. She is a passionate teacher and I think I can speak for all her students and peers when I say she is one of the best people on this earth. As long as Mrs. Carnell keeps that smile up, I believe she will get a letter like this every year and should get the teacher of the month every month.