“Kids these days…” That’s what you would hear if you were to venture into the classroom my long time English teacher, Mrs. Wolff calls, “the light side”. When I think of a hero who has changed my life, I thought of my parents, my coach and my older sister, but the person who has changed me the most, would have to be Mrs. Wolff. She is inspiring, hardworking and will always do as much as she can do to help you with whatever you need. One way or another, she makes you do your work. She is, in my opinion, the best teacher you will ever meet.

When I first visited Alps, the school only functioned because of a small group of people: Mrs. Warczack, the secretary, Mrs. Goedderz, the 5th and 6th grade teacher, and of course, Mrs. Wolff, the 7th and 8th grade teacher. Our principal, Mrs. Muza, had minimal involvement because we were always excelling, and Mrs. Wolff kept us in line. I don’t think there was a worse person to have a detention with than Mrs. Wolff. She had an effect over a person that was both great and horrific.

My first year at Alps, our school contracted, and became a 5th through 8th grade school. Our school had been shrinking since it’s beginning, but it had and never has since been, as small as it was that year. This allowed us to be much more associated with each other. When I was in 5th grade everyone in our school knew everybody else’s name, thanks to Mrs. Wolff. Every once and a while, our whole school, which was approximately 50 people or so, got together and did a team building activity. This brought us a lot closer together, because most of the time, the activities were really hard.

One of the best things about going to Alps was we were very arts centered. A lot of the people that have gone to Alps have had Gifted and Talented Arts or some other great talent. Mrs. Wolff thought that we needed outputs for expressing ourselves, because we had lots of stress from her classes. Though when it came to expressing through the arts, there was no one as good as Mrs. Wolff. During the winter of my first year, our long-term sub left us a few weeks before our winter concert. We had no teacher for almost a week, but then Mrs. Wolff stepped in and helped us learn our songs. She even taught us how to play a new song, titled “It’s a Marshmallow World”.

When we were in 7th grade, our teacher Mr. Allen had called it quits because he couldn’t handle the way we learned, making us behind in everything. Mrs. Wolff took our class under her wing, for our science class. We worked really hard to keep up with the staggering amount of work that she gave us. But in the long run it helped, we had a week or so later, memorized all of the bones, muscles and major parts of the endocrine, nervous and digestive system. She taught us important note taking skills, but as they say good things can’t last forever, our school got us a new teacher and she had to try and catch us up with the curriculum, which had amounted so much that it was almost too much to cover over a year.

I can say that everyone who comes to Alps, experiences basically the same thing with Mrs. Wolff. You learn that she is nice and sweet, but will drown you in your own faults if you don’t humble yourself. The first time I ever had a late homework assignment in one of her classes, she took me and my friend out into the hall, and didn’t yell. She just turned all of the words we used against us. It was basically impossible to outsmart or outdraw her. Though as soon as you walk back into the room everything was back to normal, as if it had never happened. It is kind of like the alter ego of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. No one ever wanted to make her revert back to Mr. Hyde, but she did every time somebody forgot the rules or didn’t turn in their homework. The actual fear of it happening, and knowing it was your fault, probably was her best and worst feature as a teacher.

After having her for a teacher for a few subjects and then not having her as a teacher, I can say that she is indeed the teacher that has helped me most to grow. She may have a high-level of expectation, but she has a greater level of patience when you have trouble learning something. She doesn’t give you her respect, you have to earn it. Being in her class was like a constant battle with homework and tests, but in the end you miss it. For those reasons I think she is the best teacher I have ever had.