Mrs. Faherty, (or ¡SRA!) was the only person I was truly sad to leave behind when I left middle school. She is like a good friend – relatable, knowledgeable, and easy to talk to.
Mrs. Faherty makes learning Spanish fun. Beisbol (“baseball” in Spanish) is one of the things I miss the most. She would play it with us to practice vocabulary words; when you get the word right, you advance to the next base. If you don’t get it right, you get a walk if the catcher doesn’t knows the word or an out if the catcher gets the word right. I hardly ever had to study for quizzes because she got the concepts through to me so effectively.
Caring about students is something Mrs. Faherty is an expert on. She makes sure that we’re okay with concepts and is more than willing to give extra help. She gives people a “free assignment” card that exempts you from or improves your score on an assignment. She even remembered my birthday after I went to high school and sent a card home with my brother addressed to Carmen – my Spanish name from middle school. She teaches Spanish to kindergarten through fifth grade once a week, so in eighth grade, she arranged for my Spanish class put on a play based on a Spanish children’s book for the younger grades to help improve their comprehension.
April Fool’s Day is any kid’s favorite holiday; you can play tricks on people and get away with it! All you have to do is yell, “April Fool!!” In middle school, all the teachers hated and discouraged April Fool’s Day activity. But not Mrs. Faherty. She would laugh at our antics of putting her dry-erase markers out of her reach and displacing her posters and pencils right along with us.
Mrs. Faherty deserves this award because of what she does for the students. The knowledge and care that she provides for every single one should be acknowledged and appreciated. She helped me become a functional Spanish speaker which has come in handy more than I ever thought it would.