Every single year you are put into a group of new classes, with a group of new and old people. You learn the teacher’s name, how long they’ve been teaching, where they taught before, if they’re married, or if they have any kids. You go through an entire ten months staring some man or woman in the face when they’re supposed to be teaching you something. Showing you some life altering information like what x will equal if 23x+5x+2=150, or better yet what the perfect construction of a sentence looks like. For 180 days we look these people in the face, and nine times out of ten, we will never know who were looking at.
Ms. Marquis took the time. She spent 180 days with us and the time went by too fast. She told us her aspirations, her experiences, what she expected from us as students AND as people. She was kind and generous, but business was business. As long as you held your own she was going to hold hers.
When my grandma died she pulled me aside and asked what was wrong. I didn’t know how she knew because I masked myself with happiness. I am not quite sure when she found the time to notice, or to look any deeper than what was right in front of her, because my 180 days were up. She was my sophomore English teacher, I had been promoted to looking another woman in the face for 180 days. I was a junior now.
When I moved to North Carolina I thought my circumstances would change and they did a little. I cant help to ask myself what would Ms. Marquis tell me to do? That means a lot, she took the time to connect. She understands the meaning of being a teacher. Its more than just teaching the curriculum, its about teaching life lessons. How can you teach a group of kids, young adults, with personal struggles of their own, if you don’t even know who they are. Ms. Marquis paid attention to the little things that made it easier to understand the big things. She gave us more than any teacher ever did. She gave us the world in 180 days.
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