Before the new school year started, when I saw my schedule for the first time, I saw that I had none other than Ken Hutchins, the scary, anti-social, mastermind of a science teacher who gave the hardest tests, quizzes at all of Newark Charter School. Also, I had him for homeroom. On the first day, I was scared out of my mind because of all of the things that I had heard about him from the eighth graders of previous years. Ken Hutchins should be the Educator of the Year because he teaches his students things that will help them excel in all of their classes for years to come. He taught us how to learn/memorize our notes in class so that we wouldn’t have to study as much, and he taught us based on the most common learning type: the visual; he forced us to think for ourselves.

As the year went on, I learned that all of the comments I had heard about him were true. Also, I realized that his quizzes could make someone’s head explode due to all of the stress over studying, because all we did in class was write pages of notes. Later, I learned that writing all of those notes was helping me learn the material in class, so that all I had to do when I got home was to do what Mr. Hutchins had said and look over my notes and “read for comprehension”. He changed my learning experience forever.

Mr. Hutchins taught us based on the most common learning type: visual. I am a visual learner and at the time, I didn’t realize while I was writing all of those pages of notes everyday in science class last year that I was actually learning the material. It helped me this year on my midterms, and I ended up getting all A’s. This is a skill that will help me keep my 4.0 GPA. Mr. Hutchins helped me know how I learn.

Out of all of the things Mr. Hutchins did, the fact that he forced us to think for ourselves was the best. When we did our warm ups, he didn’t just give us easy review questions, he gave us questions that would make us think. For example, one of his questions was, “Give 3 examples of palindromes.” Most of us didn’t know what a palindrome was, but he didn’t tell us until we thought about it for a while and gave him our guesses. Once he told us what a palindrome was, none of could think of any besides the obvious, “racecar”. He made us think about it for a while longer and we finally came up with “kayak” and “rotor”. He opened our eyes to something that not many of us did before: thinking.

Even though I am now in high school, I still remember the first day when we were talking, and he dropped a long, metal pole out of nowhere and scared the mess out of all of us. I remember going to class and wondering “what we would learn that day?” or “what funny thing will happen in class today?” Now that I am in high school, I miss all of those days and the greatest teach of all time. The least I can do is nominate my favorite teacher for Educator of the Year; he deserves it.