To The Teacher That Raised Me In The Classroom
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Education

To The Teacher That Raised Me In The Classroom

A sincere thank you to my best friend.

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To The Teacher That Raised Me In The Classroom

High school is all about changes. Changes in your location, body, and schedule. For me, I was actually quite scared to become a freshman. Hearing all of the horror stories about seniors slamming you into lockers, boys trying to take over your life, and all of the evil teachers that refuse to give you any sympathy. Well, that may be true at some schools, but not mine.

My high school was very small, about 70 kids in my graduating class alone, and everyone knows everyone. On my first day of freshman year, I nervously walked up the stairs with my sister, a junior, by my side. She was showing me my locker and where all of my classes were one last time before the bell rang for first period.

As the first bell rang, I held my breath as my sister ran away to go to her first class of the day. My first period class flew by, and before I knew it, it was time for second period, English 9, easy enough, I thought to myself, I've been speaking English ever since I was born. So I giddily walked to my next class and was immediately greeted by a friendly face, I asked her if I was in the right place and she eagerly directed me to a seat in the oddly set up classroom.

As I waited for all of my classmates, whom I've been with since kindergarten, I started to look around the room. Posters of all kinds were plastered on the walls and finally my eyes wandered to the white board in the front of the room. Written messily across the board was Mrs. Flanigan. I thought to myself, if she was a teacher, why didn't she have better handwriting?

As all of the familiar faces flooded into the room, I began to feel more comfortable. Finally the bell to end passing period rang and she came waltzing into the room. "Good Morning!" she bellowed. She only got a few hellos back and others rolled their eyes, "My name is Mrs. Flanigan, but you can call me Flan". All of the students started to look at each other with wild looks in their eyes. No teacher ever let us give them nicknames in middle school.

She continued taking roll call and began to pass out books. When she started to tell us to go ahead and crack open the torn apart book on the first day, I knew there was something special about this particular individual. However, by the time that the bell rang to leave 2nd hour, I found myself not wanting to leave. I felt at peace in this oddly shaped classroom and it was somewhere I could see myself in for the rest of my time at this high school.

Fast forward to the end of the day, I was placed into a study hall one door over from "Flan". This study hall was overfilled and there was an opportunity given to me that wasn't normally given to freshman, I was presented with the opportunity to be a teacher's aide. I knew exactly who I wanted to aide for and I ran up to the desk grabbed a copy of the form and sped out of the classroom, took a sharp left, and burst into the classroom next door. Out of breath, I shoved the aiding form into Flan's face and screeched that I wanted to aide for her. She side-eyed her current teacher's aide and said "Ah, what the hell" and signed the paper.

That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I stayed with Flan all year and did all kinds of things for her; grading, running errands, filing papers, you name it, I did it. Finally, it was time to end my freshman year and I was filled with excitement to return the next year and do it all over again. This cycle continued for the next two years, grading, filing, errands.

At the end of my junior year I was presented with a tough decision, I could take a vocational class and have to take English online, or I could stay at my high school all day and take at least 3 Home Ec. electives, 2 History courses, and 2 Fine Arts classes just to fill up my day. Obviously I wanted to take the first choice, and I've always been good at English so I thought "What the heck, why not".

So I signed up for vocational and got accepted right away. Senior year rolled around and I began my vocational class with an open mind, however, when I got back to my "home" school, I realized I was not ready for the workload that was about to be dumped on me with this online English 12 course.

I went to Flan with tears in my eyes, screaming, "I'M GOING TO FAIL THIS CLASS, I'M NOT GOING TO GRADUATE", Flan immediately told me to shut up and to show her what was going on. The first vocabulary word was scholasticism, Flan's eyes grew wide and said "yeah, you're going to fail", of course this made me cry harder and realize that this was going to become a roller coaster. Flan eventually gave up her "prep" period to tutor me and help me work through this course together.

Well, I finished the course at semester with a C and I thought that was pretty dang good. My school then switched me into a real classroom for the second semester of my senior year and I had never been more relieved. I still stayed with Flan and decided to still aide for her my second semester. We probably had way to much fun, going Black Friday shopping, online shopping, and the school board was probably questioning why we were looking up apartments for her son to live in.

However, when life is all fun and games there always has to be a downside. One day before I graduated, Flan's beloved dog Grizzley was struck by a car and killed. While she wasn't at gradutation in person I could feel her presence. That presence ended up being her son, a tall, scrawny kid that you couldn't miss, clunking his way down the hallways in his big work boots. I walked up to him and said "Your mom will kill both of us if we don't get a picture together", Colton agreed and I promptly sent said picture to her phone. I then got a text back that I will never forget, it read, "That is a picture that I will treasure forever". I smiled to myself and got up the courage to put on a brave face even though my best friend wasn't there to give me the support that I needed to go up on that stage and recieve my diploma.

Finally, after four years of literal blood, sweat, and tears, I had my diploma in hand and was released into the real world. The moral of the story is, friends can be anyone, of any age, of any walk of life, as Flan always said, "just another day in paradise".

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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