How Did Mrs. Welch Influence My Life

If I was to chose the teacher who influenced my life the most, the teacher who changed the course of my academic career, I would have to choose Mrs. Welch. While at the time I did not care for her as a teacher, she pushed me in ways that no previous teachers did. I had her in both second and third grade, though only in math during second grade, and I remember her to this day. I did not have all positive memories with her, for I believe she made me cry once, but she was by far the most influential teacher on my academics. Before having her as a teacher, I had not been challenged at all in any of my classes. I passed through the four first years of school with no problems at all, until Mrs. Welch started challenging me. Before having her

Welch, I would say a lot of things. She was firm in her answers and she had a temper but she also had a softer side. Mrs. Welch was not a teacher who could teach you multiplication in a day, but she was a teacher who would see potential and push that particular student to realize and seek out that potential. Mrs. Welch is also a foster parent, which does not necessarily make her a better teacher, but it does show that she naturally cares about children. Moreover, Mrs. Welch was a teacher who would understand if you had a particularly bad day, and she would always listen if you needed help outside of the classroom or the school day. One specific event I remember was that she always wanted the students in her class to get along with each other and to not argue over meaningless things. Therefore, if there was any kind of third grade “drama” in our class, she would figure out what the underlying problem was and teach us how to fix it without hurting anybody’s feelings. I find myself able to recall several instances in which she would pull a group of kids out into the hallway to settle a dispute between them that was almost always frivolous, considering we were in third grade. That was another characteristic of hers that simply stuck out to me. Although I admit, sometimes I did resent that characteristic of Mrs. Welch’s, I can relent and say with affirmity that showing us that crying because somebody stole your shoe is not exactly a “big” problem and it

Welch pushed me to greater limits than I thought were possible as a third grader. Without her showing me that feeling of accomplishment after you finish a challenging book, I would have never attempted to read some of the books I have. I would never have tried to read Jane Eyre or 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea if she had not, at an earlier age, showed me that love and the challenge of reading books where you do not know every word. I owe a great deal of my academic success to her, for without her I would not have started challenging myself to go above and beyond the required level. What Mrs. Welch gave me is not quite something I can precisely explain, for she gave me more of a character quality or a mentality than something like a book or a quote. Even saying it over and over again I cannot quite place what exactly it is that I took from third grade, but I do know that when asked to choose the most impactful teacher you have had, the only person I could think of was Mrs. Welch. The change Mrs. Welch benevolently encouraged me to make was that of changing the way I viewed my studies, for she told me not to only view them as the pathway to college, but to view them as a chance to learn. This is not to say that I wake up every morning and read before eagerly coming to school, but I do find challenging classes much more interesting. I now cannot imagine going throughout the day and not finding someway to challenge myself, for that would easily become extremely