Educator of the Year goes to.... | Teen Ink

Educator of the Year goes to....

April 18, 2016
By aaron_nick SILVER, Pewaukee, Wisconsin
aaron_nick SILVER, Pewaukee, Wisconsin
5 articles 0 photos 0 comments

I never enjoyed school. That was, up until junior year. During my junior year,  I joined organizational communications, where I first met Mr. Freeburg.  Teachers often possess nice, cookie cutter, and average characteristics. Now flip all those characteristics and what you get is Mr. Freeburg: brutally honest, ALMOST crazy, and different than anyone I've ever met in my life.
Mr. Freeburg’s honesty is always 100%. If you smell like “a wheat field in Italy” he won't be shy to tell you. The class is structured about learning to read body language. He explains “you're always communicating something no matter what.” That means he is always watching to see how you're sitting and he’s teaching us that life is a constant evaluation. At first, I didn't know how I felt about being constantly watched, but it turns out, it is good for me. The constant evaluations make me perform or listen with full attention. And in Mr. Freeburg’s class, there is no room for slacking off.
Mr. Freeburg is like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings without being a bald headed monster. Now this may seem like a negative thing to say, but there are plenty of similarities. Mr. Freeburg often yells “My precious” (in a creepy low voice to keep the class focused on him). He thinks differently from anyone and focus on what he wants. He gives 100% to get what he wants out of students. He doesn't make the students feel less, but instead, he makes the students feel like he is Batman and the students are the Robins.
Within the first week of the semester, he brought the class together. That is so important in a class where you have to get up in front of everyone, and expose yourself as you give a nervous speech that you just want to get out of the way. The 30 pairs of eyes on you to judge your every move and word.
What makes Mr. Freeburg better than any other teacher is that he makes me think about what he teaches outside of school. Now I constantly evaluate how people are always communicating. It has really made life better, as I have improved the conversations I have with people. And in the end isn't that the end goal, to get the students to use their new knowledge in real life situations?
In Mr. Freeburg’s class I’m not worried about what grade I'm going to get; instead, I worry about how I can improve or what knowledge I can pick up.
I would like to nominate Mr. Freeburg for this award. I do not see him as just a good teacher, but instead, I see him as a good person. His personality cannot be justly explained through an essay. To try to fully explain him would be as hard as going up and giving a speech in front of the entire population of arrowhead. But that is why he is deserves to win this award.



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