Trying to narrow down all the wonderful teachers I’ve had during my time in school is enough of a challenge as is, but describing the level of excellence I have been exposed to by having Mrs. Andrews as my advanced Algebra 2 teacher is on a new level of difficulty. She has opened more windows of my mind than I knew possible, and awakened my interest in the schematics of the world around me. Anytime someone can do that, I think it is very noteworthy. Math is something I’ve not necessarily always struggled with, but have never been able to make an applicable connection to. I had seen it as an inconvenience that I would have to deal with to get through my schooling and nothing more. I shied away from all career paths involving math and my confidence in my ability to execute it was slowly but surely being stripped away. Doors were closing for me because of one simple misconception. Then, Mrs. Andrews came along.

I walked into Mrs. Andrews class with low interest and lower expectations. I expected nothing more than the math class I had been exposed to in the past years, but I’ve never been more wrong in my life. Mrs. Andrews class was the most stress-free environment I had ever had the pleasure of being exposed to. Nothing about her teaching stressed the extremities of pass or fail, but nothing about the class was without challenge as well. The material remained difficult, but she explained it in such as way that it seemed more like she was telling a story, and this captured my interest immediately. Math became an adventure and a puzzle to me, and this appealed to my senses much more than accepting it as a law. With Mrs. Andrews I learned to challenge my long time foe, and the courage I found in her classroom became something I fed off of in all my courses. She woke a hunger in me for more than memorization and regurgitation. I now wanted to understand and create. I now long for discovery, and this change in my mindset has morphed my attitude as a student into something that I can use for the better.

To think that all these changes in myself came from a quirky women who wasn’t afraid to crack jokes with her students or spend extra time explaining something minute scares me sometimes. It scares me to think that if I had been placed in another class, so much of my journey and self-discovery would have been warped. It’s not every day that you find a teacher who both challenges your mentality and inspires you to be better. Mrs. Andrews is someone who I am proud to call my teacher. She taught me to use my fear towards the betterment of myself, and that an obstacle is not always an enemy. To think that she did all this standing behind a podium makes me wonder what I could do if I found a soap box.