I came in contact with someone really extraordinary recently. I didn't think they made people like her anymore. She's one of a kind, all smiles, heart and soul and exuding an energy I cannot describe. I had heard about her for a while. She was supposed to be a very dynamic, talented, and gifted teacher, but my experience with her was really so much more.
She walked into our class the very first morning with a little bit of intrepidation. We were anxious, nervous, eager and raw. She sensed that and put the sweetest salve on our rawness. She smiled, looked into our eyes and within minutes she had all our names memorized. With something just as simple as that, she put us ease and we began in earnest. I found myself challenged at first. Was I really cut out for it? My level of French didn't even come close to what some of the others had in my class. I found myself excited at the prospect of going to her class each day. Her manner was simple, clear, precise and well thought of. It was as if she knew my handicap, anticipated my questions and had simple practical solutions to offer. She transformed a language course into something visually understood. To remember some of the prepositions she told us to correlate it with @2%..à,de, pour, sans ... Elementary and effective. To remember participe passé, we used DrMrsVandertramp! I felt like a child in school again, but hey, then again, that's exactly what I was. To remember the verbes pronominal, we used Josephine and Napoleon as an example. I am sure these things will stay on with me forever.
She was very forthcoming with encouragement and praise. She chose to look at the positive side of things even when some situations bothered her. She welcomed the students with open arms and gave advise like an older sister. Instantly, she had my attention, my motivation and above all my respect. The French language is difficult for me. Being a high academic achiever all throughout, I wanted to be ahead academically, yet at the same time I did not want to let her down. The effort, the thought and the hard work she put in surely deserved more than a half hearted try. I pushed myself a bit more each day. I read the french newspaper, watched French tv and made more of an effort to face my handicapped oral French. She made me dig deep in appreciating the little and not so little things in life when I read "Le petit prince". Many a quote from the book caused tears to flow forth. She even shared her favorite books with me. It went beyond the ordinary and became just that much extra.
Days slipped by silently and weeks simply rolled. With laughter, reminiscence, anecdotes and advise, she transformed our class with unspoken dynamics. She was passionate, patient and most of all she put us at ease. I eased into accepting French and talking French naturally. She was never overly strict with rules, always there to help in a crisis, often overlooking tardiness and extremely generous with her marks. She shared her hot ginger tea with me when she saw my discomfort with a dry irritating cough and helped others in their life issues, career choices or simply by recommending a doctor to someone in need. She guided us in the exam, corrected us gently, encouraged us and made us love her subject as much as her in the process.
To me, her work seemed so much more than a profession. It was something she did with her heart. After I wrote the first essay in her class, she moved me to tears when she came up to me and told me that I write like a québécois. That was perhaps the only time I have ever felt validated by my teacher. Just those words gave me the added impetus to conquer my fears of a new language. The more I embrace it, the more it loves me in return.
It's funny sometimes how the universe conspires to help us when we are ready to learn. Nicole was just that. She came into my life when I was most challenged, lost and unsure. She helped me transform vulnerability into triumph and made me believe in the future. She treated us like people before students, respected our limitations yet pushed us ever so gently in the right direction without expecting anything in return. Like she said, we are really her children. I learnt more than the correct French from her, I learnt about the goodness of the heart. I hope to one day, carry forward what I learnt from her, I hope to aspire to be a better human being and I hope to try and find the Nicole in me to continue this circle called life.
She walked into our class the very first morning with a little bit of intrepidation. We were anxious, nervous, eager and raw. She sensed that and put the sweetest salve on our rawness. She smiled, looked into our eyes and within minutes she had all our names memorized. With something just as simple as that, she put us ease and we began in earnest. I found myself challenged at first. Was I really cut out for it? My level of French didn't even come close to what some of the others had in my class. I found myself excited at the prospect of going to her class each day. Her manner was simple, clear, precise and well thought of. It was as if she knew my handicap, anticipated my questions and had simple practical solutions to offer. She transformed a language course into something visually understood. To remember some of the prepositions she told us to correlate it with @2%..à,de, pour, sans ... Elementary and effective. To remember participe passé, we used DrMrsVandertramp! I felt like a child in school again, but hey, then again, that's exactly what I was. To remember the verbes pronominal, we used Josephine and Napoleon as an example. I am sure these things will stay on with me forever.
She was very forthcoming with encouragement and praise. She chose to look at the positive side of things even when some situations bothered her. She welcomed the students with open arms and gave advise like an older sister. Instantly, she had my attention, my motivation and above all my respect. The French language is difficult for me. Being a high academic achiever all throughout, I wanted to be ahead academically, yet at the same time I did not want to let her down. The effort, the thought and the hard work she put in surely deserved more than a half hearted try. I pushed myself a bit more each day. I read the french newspaper, watched French tv and made more of an effort to face my handicapped oral French. She made me dig deep in appreciating the little and not so little things in life when I read "Le petit prince". Many a quote from the book caused tears to flow forth. She even shared her favorite books with me. It went beyond the ordinary and became just that much extra.
Days slipped by silently and weeks simply rolled. With laughter, reminiscence, anecdotes and advise, she transformed our class with unspoken dynamics. She was passionate, patient and most of all she put us at ease. I eased into accepting French and talking French naturally. She was never overly strict with rules, always there to help in a crisis, often overlooking tardiness and extremely generous with her marks. She shared her hot ginger tea with me when she saw my discomfort with a dry irritating cough and helped others in their life issues, career choices or simply by recommending a doctor to someone in need. She guided us in the exam, corrected us gently, encouraged us and made us love her subject as much as her in the process.
To me, her work seemed so much more than a profession. It was something she did with her heart. After I wrote the first essay in her class, she moved me to tears when she came up to me and told me that I write like a québécois. That was perhaps the only time I have ever felt validated by my teacher. Just those words gave me the added impetus to conquer my fears of a new language. The more I embrace it, the more it loves me in return.
It's funny sometimes how the universe conspires to help us when we are ready to learn. Nicole was just that. She came into my life when I was most challenged, lost and unsure. She helped me transform vulnerability into triumph and made me believe in the future. She treated us like people before students, respected our limitations yet pushed us ever so gently in the right direction without expecting anything in return. Like she said, we are really her children. I learnt more than the correct French from her, I learnt about the goodness of the heart. I hope to one day, carry forward what I learnt from her, I hope to aspire to be a better human being and I hope to try and find the Nicole in me to continue this circle called life.
