A Look into the Past

As I walked into the room I was instantly filled with excited anticipation for the conversation to follow, the day we learned about Ms. Serensky’s past. The desks, arranged in a tight circle, set the scene for a completely different class. As she passed out suckers to each of us to “keep all of you quiet” Ms. Serensky seated herself in the circle and began. She spoke of her remembrance of high school and the limited challenges she was presented with. However, when she approached college, she found that school was not so simple. “You will not always be the best” she warned, “accept it, so you don’t waste energy” (16). She told of her humbling experiences in college, and how her approach to teaching will truly prepare us for the future. She then began to describe on particularly warm day when she visited the pool. While swimming, a man quizzed her on William Shakespeare works, later; she learned that he was to be her professor “this was her first remembrance of” the man (3.3.290). She spoke of how he challenged her and forced her out of her comfort zone to achieve all that she was capable of. “I have tried to model my teaching style from him” she explained. Then she reached her teaching years in the story, she told of how she struggled to create a teaching style that would truly help us achieve what she wished she had in high school. I sat in silence the entire period, with an exception of the few laughs that escaped my lips. A smile grew across my face as the story continued. Finally, the bell rang, and I slowly gathered my books and walked towards the door with a whole new prospective on a woman I had known for about two years. “[It was] a very painful parting” from the room (31). I did not want to leave the positive atmosphere and return to the mundane routine of the everyday.  However, I forced myself to venture onto my next class, leaving behind the best day in AP English 12 I have ever experienced.