When I first started at North Shore Middle School I was terrified of having multiple teachers, let alone having a male teacher. And for all I knew, boys still had cooties. 

For as long as I could remember it was me, my class, and a female teacher, all shoved into a colorfly chaotic classroom. That was it, no one else there to interrupt our little family built inside.

My mom always claims that change is a good thing, that it was “exciting to go to a new school!” So you can discover things you never thought of before or whatever. But in my opinion, change disrupted my peace. 

My sixth and seventh grade years were typical. Looking back on them now, they seem so easy compared to high school and I wish I could go back to them. 

However, eighth grade year will always take the cake.

People will ask, “If you could go back in time and change anything, what would it be?”

And the truth is, for a girl who despises change, I would never think to go back and rearrange any memories made in eighth grade. Especially within the walls of Mr. Anderson's classroom. 

Mr. Anderson taught 27 students English during ninth hour, and even though he had other classes during the day, I like to think that we were always secretly his favorite. 

I believe that Mr. Anderson was able to fill his classroom with laughter, love, and joy because we were not just his students, we were his family. He would encourage us to push ourselves further, not just as writers, but as people. He could resist the whole Raven poem by Edgar Allen Poe - only if you gave him the time of day. And he would make awful dad jokes.

“Come on,” he would pry, “That one was funny!” 

I vividly remember the first day in his class. I walked in to find a seating chart on the board. I'd never had a male English teacher before, but he was exactly the type of person I envisioned. A tall lengthy man, glasses on the bridge of his nose, khakis, and a button down. 

Without knowing us of course, he put two of my close friends and I in a little triangle in the front left corner of the room. Day after day he would continue to come over to us, wag his finger and instruct us to “Get back to work.” Especially Joshua (one of my best friends) who always managed to fully 180 his desk around in order to face Kennedy and I. But I always saw him smirk, shake his head, and laugh as he turned away.

Not only was Mr. Anderson, a passionate teacher and a genuinely fantastic person, he was solely the man who made me love english. 

And even though he is retired now, I hope he knows that he was a desirable change in my life and in many others.