Switching from middle school to high school was a hard transition. Teachers used to feel like close friends in middle school, and then they just felt like teachers in high school. Classes changed so often that it was no longer about knowing things about one another, it was about learning the subject and moving on. But the Integrated Learning Experience changed how I felt about high school. I am nominating the Integrated Learning Experience.

I signed up for my freshman year with my friends and we all picked this class called Integrated Learning Academy (which was changed to ILE as I will refer to it, or Integrated Learning Experience, after my freshman year), which we knew nothing about prior to the first day. We soon learned that ILE consisted of three subjects--English, science and social studies--mixed into one 120 minute class period. There is a total of five main teachers for ILE. However, the most influential teachers were my sophomore year teachers, Ms. Singletary for English, Mr. Reichle -- also the head of ILE -- for US History, and Mr. Mechinich for biology. The teachers of ILE were the most amazing teachers I have ever had.

The Integrated Learning Experience was much harder than the core classes because it was centered around projects. Each project was designed for all three subjects, and the rubric for our semester exam project was usually less than a page long. We had to fill in the rest of the rubric with what we wanted to be graded on. However, ILE wasn’t just projects, we also had to keep up with the work that the regular classes were doing.

We never did work the way you would expect in a traditional classroom. The teachers of ILE were always creative and changing around projects from year to year. Our first project of the year was an integrated project with freshman and sophomores. Freshman had parts due for their teachers (teachers for freshman and sophomores were different, except for Ms. Singletary who teaches both English classes) and sophomores had parts due for their teachers, but we got to choose our topic about whatever we wanted within the parameters they gave us, which was only that it had to be about milwaukee. Before the end of our project, we went to Milwaukee and interviewed people related to our project for English and went to influential parts of milwaukee to learn about the history.

It was by chance that I ended up in ILE my freshman year, but I could not be more thankful. Not only do I know the students in that class personally, but I also feel like I know the teachers personally too.

Ms. Singletary always challenged us to think. She wouldn’t tell us how to do things, it was up to us how we wanted to do them. On any given rubric, the English portion would be open ended, with very little written down. The project being done could be taken in any direction possible. Every day I looked forward to coming to English class, even if I hadn’t finished the homework or understood the reading. My english class felt like an elementary school classroom. Not because of the material, but because of Ms. Singletary. She kept class interesting. I never knew what we would be doing on a given day, and that is what I loved about it. Any teacher can assign a chapter and create a study guide. But it takes an exceptional teacher to have students create their own assignments.

Even though I argued daily  with Mr. Mechinich and Mr. Reichle that they gave too much work or that I didn’t like the work they assigned, they never gave up on me. And even though I messed around in class a lot and wouldn’t pay attention at times, they were always lenient and graded my late assignments right away, even though they both had families to take care of and other work to grade. I was usually stressed out from all the work that ILE gave with an important project and assignments from all 3 subjects, and they understood this.

Mr. Mechinich encouraged me to work for what I want. I would complain that that he wouldn’t teach what he was assigning, but the truth was he wanted us to learn through experience. He taught the information we needed to move on from biology into higher science classes, but he didn’t stop there. Whenever our class would finish an assignment, he had us discuss as a class what we learned and what it all means. Sometimes our grades wouldn’t even come from the assignments, it would come from what we took away from them. Mr. Mechinich wasn’t just a biology teacher, he was an ILE teacher.

Mr. Reichle was a unique teacher. Never have I had a teacher like him before, and I don’t know that I will again. He had an odd sense of humor, he could make up a joke for just about anything he was talking about. When none of us laughed, he would sit back and laugh at his joke which in turn made us all laugh. Mr. Reichle pushed my buttons, and I could tell I pushed his buttons too. He was hard on me and I perceived it as that he just didn’t like me. Looking back, I realize he was pushing me to do more because he knew I could accomplish more than what he expected. That is what the ILE is about, not being an A student but being an intelligent person. And Mr. Reichle of all, knew I was capable of more than just an A.

The ILE was an incredible class and every day I relive the memories. I am so thankful I got to experience the ILE, and I am even more thankful I get to say that I had these wonderful people as teachers. The Integrated Learning Experience teachers encouraged me, challenged me, and most importantly never gave up on me.