Even after taking a Spanish class every year of my life since kindergarten, I have always struggled with learning a foreign language. I have never looked forward to Spanish class and most of the time I dreaded going. It wasn’t until my sophomore year Spanish 3 class that eighth hour became my favorite time of day. And it’s all thanks of my incredible teacher, Mr. Gliniecki.

Unfortunately, I was only lucky enough to have Mr. Gliniecki for one year. But in that year, I learned not only a lot of Spanish (the subjunctive, imperfect, future, conditional, and many more different verb forms), but I also learned what it’s like to have a great relationship with a teacher.

At least twice a week in Spanish, we would play a different type of game. And believe me, these games got as competitive as the olympics.

There is one specific class I will never forget--we played Around the World, a one-on-one game testing our knowledge of the current vocabulary. A clue would appear on the board and the first person to say the correct vocabulary word would move on to the next person. The first person to go completely around the “world” (or the classroom) would win. As conceited as this may sound, I remember this class because I won. And even though it was only one game, I was so proud of myself, and I had Mr. Gliniecki to thank for that. He made me want to study vocabulary, he made me want to put in extra time, and he made me want to succeed in his class.

At the start of second semester, Mr. Gliniecki assigned us a seating chart in which my best friend and I were sitting the furthest away from each other that we could be. “We learn better together!” we told him every day, trying to convince him to seat us closer together. Eventually, we proposed a deal. If we could come up with the coolest handshake ever, and perform it in front of the class with background music included, everyone could pick their seats. Mr. Gliniecki, being the greatest teacher ever, accepted our proposal.

Sometimes, just for the pure fun of it, Mr. Gliniecki would walk on his hands around the room. It was times like these where I was so glad I had him as a teacher, and there wasn’t a day in the class that I didn’t smile or laugh.

Mr. Gliniecki is not only one of the greatest educators I have experienced in my 12 years of schooling, but he is also hilarious, caring, and genuine. Thank you, Mr. Gliniecki, for everything you’ve done for me and many others -- your actions do not go unnoticed.