For Educator of the Year, I’d like to nominate my creative writing teacher, Jason Snyder. He teaches both English and creative writing at Keller High School in Keller, Texas. I nominate Mr. Snyder because he’s not only and outstanding teacher, he’s also an all-around good guy. I have a few examples on why as well.

It was the beginning of my sophomore year and I had tried for a long time to get into a creative writing class, accepting that I was in it in my second year of high school. Now, though it was exciting, I was and still am a very shy girl. I had never done well with large crowds, people I’d never met before, and I also have a fear of males older than me or males in general. Seeing as Mr. Snyder is obviously a male, I was afraid it would be a class that I enjoyed but was always scared to go to. But boy; I was proven wrong.

As soon as I entered the room, I instantly felt welcomed. Mr. Snyder has a way of making people know that he is a very understanding and nice person and that everyone is welcomed into his classroom. I felt comfortable from the moment I sat in his class and I wasn’t afraid of him like I was with most of my male teachers.

He also made it known that if we wanted to talk to him about anything, we were more than welcome to go to him. I had a very hard beginning of the year with a hospital visit, panic attacks, and an ugly break up to add to all of that. One day after school, I was crying in the hallway and my friend was hugging and trying to comfort me. Little did I know, Mr. Snyder was walking by in the hallway and must have seen me as a sobbing mess. Any regular teacher would have ignored that they’d seen anything and would’ve tried to block it to the back of their mind. But Mr. Snyder didn’t do that. The next day during class, we were in the computer lab for typing. I sat silently, sometimes turning to talk to my friend until Mr. Snyder walked by. I was thinking he was maybe going to ask how my story was going, but he instead asked if I was doing better. I thought maybe he had seen me crying or had heard someone talking about me, so I just smiled and said I was fine. He then smiled and walked away. He didn’t ask any more questions and it was nice to know that someone cared.

As a last example, he is an excellent writer and teacher. He has let us read some of his work before, telling us that he was a rising author. He is working on a book and is on his 4th draft of it. He teaches us different reading styles and reads our work while grading them honestly and giving us honest feedback on it. Being a rising writer myself, honest feedback is very useful and appreciated.

Concluding, I hope you all at Teen Ink consider Jason Snyder as an Educator of the Year, not only because he’s a good educator, but also an amazing person. Thank you for reading.