My English teacher, Mr. Freeburg, makes school a better place to be at. I look forward to fifth hour every day, because that is when I have English. When an essay or a paper is assigned by him, the assignments are fun to write, and they’re fun to listen to. The day the students present their papers, everyone is laughing, including Mr. Freeburg! He is fun, understanding, and energetic. You’ll never know what you can expect from him.
One day Mr. Freeburg dressed just like Mr. Rogers. And every year he has an ugly sweater contest. He tells the weirdest stories that most teachers would never talk about. He can politely let the class know when he has a booger hanging from his nose.

Mr. Freeburg is a teacher who thinks outside the box, literally. He knows exactly what to expect out of his students and he puts himself into their shoes. He understands that popcorn reading is lame, and that when class popcorn reads, there are three types of people: 1. someone who’s nervous to read, 2. someone who’s not following along because they just read, and 3. someone who is anxious to read. He also understands that when he’s talking about a specific word, it’s pointless to write it on the board because he knows no one will read it! He also understands that for many people, it’s not fun to go see family during Christmas. He gets that society does not realize that school/education could be so much better than it is. Mr. Freeburg talks about the ways we could make school better: remove the beige walls, which are very prisonlike, recognize how it’s unnecessary for future artists to have to have six credits of science, and teachers should stop treating students like second graders (as in giving assigned seats). He does give assigned seats, but he told us that as soon as he no longer sees smeared boogers on the bathroom walls, he will stop giving us assigned seats!

Most seniors, who have finished a semester of English, can look back and know they learned about books, British literature, and skills about good writing. But when I look back at English 12 with Mr. Freeburg, I learned that when you are given a simple idea, there is so much you can come up with. I learned that sharing bad memories is a lot funnier to discuss than to think about, and that I can get very far in life with lots of self esteem.