Mornings bring nothing but deprivation to my desire to learn. As a junior, I’ve grown the mentality to undermine it, but this issue was detrimental during my 10th grade year in high school. There’s been nights where I’d tread through my homework and get stuck in context for hours on end, hoping to see a light at the end of this tunnel of strenuous honors homework. As I meander through my backpack, I approach the binder that reads “biology, period 9” only to find myself in a compelling state of relief. Ms. Gracie, the biology teacher in my sophomore year of high school, seemed to appease my dissidence to give up on my difficult academics in my other classes.

There was one word to really describe the homework she assigned to us; enjoyable. Not for the fact that they were easier than the rest of the work, but that it actually made me want to look more into the assignment outside of what was outlined. Not only did it bring me contentment to the school day, but it also granted me this sense of inspiration to become part of the academics of science. As a teacher, Ms. Gracie may undergo the same realms as any other teacher, touching the surfaces of the subject. However, there was a feeling in the environment of her classroom that made me feel like home, even though school was far from what home feels like. She is a teacher that you can see as your mother in school, guiding you in biology, but also making you feel better as a student. In my experiences, I had the most difficult honors classes that I will probably ever have in high school during my sophomore year. Research essays and tests fluttered into the minds of students, usually bringing deprivation to their sleep schedules. There were lots of failing grades in the school’s atmosphere overall. However, when it came time for biology, it took me away from the horrors of my other subjects in school, and left a crater of respect to one of my teachers.

As a student, I don’t converse to teachers as much, so it’s really hard for me to grow a tolerance to normally talk to one. Ms. Gracie changed that constant trait of myself after I got to know her as a teacher and an individual. The year she started in my high school was coincidentally the year I hit 10th grade, so I had the privilege to experience her first year in Dickinson high school. Her style of teaching compliments the subject of biology. Her attitude about the class is one that doesn’t make you want to fall asleep, but actually influences students to try. Genetics is a topic that can easily be dull if you make your attitude unexpansive to it. With her attitude in the midst of it, it catches the attention of most of the students, if not all.

Students love to talk to Ms. Gracie, because her personality that can be completely relative to a supportive mother and has a sympathy that makes you respect her as an individual outside of a teacher. Every time I pass her class while walking to a class near it, she’s having a mutual conversation with students. Even though I haven’t really taken the time to have a conversation with her mutually during my sophomore year, there have been many times I’ve talked to her in my junior year, as her student aid for her 1st period class. I tell her about all of my problems outside of school and she always replies in a way that made me feel like someone else understands my pain in the mornings and things of that nature. It brings the mornings more exuberance other than stress and tiredness to know that you are in good terms with your teacher in the morning and that you can have a conversation sometimes out of the norm from school.

In general, Ms. Gracie deserves to be recognized by me, at least, for being the best teacher in my academics so far. With all of my experiences in the class as a student, Ms. Grace ultimately receives the award for the greatest teacher, having attributes that make her an always-positive personality and a motherly vibe that you wish to see in your teachers. In conclusion, my in-class comfortability in Ms. Gracie’s classroom has my decision on her as Teen Ink’s Educator of the Year.