Summer was over and it was the first day of seventh grade. The school was filled with the crazy first day chatter of summer, what the year will hold and most important who our teachers are. That one question that dictates how our year will go and what we can get away with and even if the teacher checks our homework. The anticipation that grips the class as our teacher introduces herself is only broken when she asks us how our summer was. This is Christ the Teacher Catholic School and this is my seventh grade teacher Mrs. Pater.

Mrs. Pater was to be my homeroom teacher, my religion teacher, and my ELA Teacher for seventh and eighth grade. I remember her most from her ELA class which was hard work that is paying off now as I write this. We wrote many essays and even read challenging books such as To Kill a Mocking Bird and The Witch of Black Bird Pond. The work we did in class was difficult and I have to admit I didn’t do it a few times because of the difficulty. Yet even when I did not do my homework she was not mad but rather disappointed and that’s when I could tell that she really cared. Knowing that she cared made me want to try harder to improve my grade.

Mrs. Pater had a way of controlling the class never by yelling. She would look up or make some type of gesture letting the class know they were getting to loud and not once did we try to defy that boundary of respect. She was also a very understanding teacher who you could talk about personal problems with and have no fear of it being spread among other teachers. She also had a very good taste in books and I found the ones we read in class very interesting. Mrs. Pater may not have been the funniest teacher but I think she cared the most.

Once a week the class would split certain student took over the room for Latin class with a different teacher while the rest of the class went to the library to take what we called enrichment. The enrichment class is one of my most memorable memories from Christ the Teacher. My seventh grade enrichment was learning about western settlers of the New World so Mrs. Pater decides what better way to do that than playing a game of the Oregon Trail. Each week we had certain events happen to us such as a broken arm, a burn, or even robbers. Then we researched what to do as if we were in the Wild West and wrote a diary entry each week on these issues and what to do. Our eighth grade enrichment was Shakespeare in which we read shortened versions of the plays and split into groups to act out these plays.

I was in Mrs. Pater’s last eighth grade ELA class before she retired. I hope she is doing exceptionally well in retirement. Without her as a teacher I do not think I would have as good grades in school. Mrs. Pater is one of the wisest people I know and is extremely selfless, always helping others. I want to thank Mrs. Pater for being the most caring teacher I have ever had and for helping me when I had trouble in school.