Educator of the Year 
  Have you ever had a really amazing teacher? Has a teacher ever impacted your life? Has there ever been a teacher that you looked up to? I had one of those teachers who answered yes to all of those questions. Her name is Mrs. Chandlee, my eighth grade science teacher at Saint John the Beloved. Mrs. Chandlee has impacted my life in a variety of ways.
    

     Mrs. Chandlee always had really unique ways of teaching us. We would do crazy projects like writing songs and performing them, making scientists out of soda bottles, and putting on a play on the steps of mitosis. We would watch science videos that were really funny, but also helped me to learn the lesson better. One time we watched a video of kids singing about physics, and on the test I did really well because I remembered the song. One thing that Mrs. Chandlee was known for was taking notes. We would write pages of notes each class, and we had notebooks full of diagrams, charts, and pictures for chemistry, genetics, and physics. Although Mrs. Chandlee made science really hard, she was able to teach us the material in a really fun way.
    

     Mrs. Chandlee had a lot of different personality traits that made her a really great teacher. She was really tough on all of us. The tests in her class were hard, and I often was confused a lot. Now, I see that all of the times I got confused paid off because it caused me to think more about what we were learning. Even though Mrs. Chandlee was tough, she was also very helpful. She was always willing to help my whole class with whatever we were confused about. She would stay in at lunch and help us, and many times during class she would stop to make sure that we all understood the lesson. Mrs. Chandlee was also very kind and funny. She was funny because she would come up with nicknames for people, and she would always call me and the rest of the girls in my class her hidden figures. She was kind because she would always make sure we were all doing alright, and she genuinely cared about us.
    

     Mrs. Chandlee has impacted my life in countless ways. Throughout my whole eighth grade year, she prepared me for high school more than I thought. I have a stronger understanding of science thanks to Mrs. Chandlee. The many notes taken in her class have had a huge impact because I use them almost every time I study for a science test. She also taught me valuable life lessons which have really helped me to learn to be grateful for what I have. The biggest way she impacted my life was how dedicated she was to her job. She taught at the same school for a really long time which I think is extraordinary. Her dedication to her job has taught me to be dedicated to whatever I do and to always strive to be the best I can be.
    

     When I got to middle school, everyone told me how hard Mrs. Chandlee’s class was. The first couple of weeks of eighth grade, I was really scared because I didn’t know what to expect. As the year went on, I realized that her class wasn’t as bad as I thought. Her tests were really hard, but Mrs. Chandlee was great at explaining things to us. When I thought about nominating a teacher for Educator of the Year, it wasn’t a tough decision. I knew right away that I was going to pick Mrs. Chandlee because of how great a teacher she was. Thank you Mrs. Chandlee for being such a great person and role model and for helping to shape me into the person I am today.