Teacher Creates a Connection With Her Students By J1 Reporter Maddie Balus A teacher’s life and impact in a classroom can create a change in the students they come from. Each student is different, which makes a teacher’s job so special and diverse. They have to help, care, and fill their students with knowledge along with life lessons so they can grow into the person they would like to become. This powerful impact can be seen across teachers everywhere. One teacher that has created an inspirational impact is Mrs. Lisa Klemme. She is the eighth grade literature and language teacher at St. Wenceslaus Catholic School. Klemme was raised as an Iowan in a small town, which meant she was outside most of her childhood. Her Catholic faith raised her outside of her public grade school and high school that consisted of about 52 kids in her grade at the time. Later in her life, she married her classmate, who also came from the same town. Becoming a teacher was not her first choice in her discovery of her career. She started off her college years as an undecided major, but along the way she decided she wanted to start a life in advertising. Through this major, she noticed a connection into education. “Everything I did, I was surrounded
by kids,” Klemme said, “It the years, students have was a natural progression given her an assortment of and really I often think that I “thank yous” which fills am doing the hardest adver- a box in her home. She is tising: trying to sell nouns motivated by these thank and verbs; [Trying to sell] yous, and these have created that writing is fun. I feel like her “why” in education. “If I am still doing what I start- there was a fire, I would ed doing. It’s just that I am have to grab that box,” not selling a product; I am Klemme said, “I am humselling writing and reading.” bled by the fact that I can With this add to change in “Getting to know the that box her career year students, well, that’s every path, she with some the best part of the student drew inspiration and job. Even though I who has help from written am much older than her grandme a note. ma. Her they are, we are all It could grandma be on a on the same journey was a onescrap of room counjust trying to figure paper that try school they have it out. It is a gift to left on my teacher, which meant desk or it interact.” she taught could be -Lisa Klemme all the a formal ages of the letter. town. Klemme asks herself, Every single one of those I “What would she do?” to have kept. I wish students could know how much those help herself get through words of encouragement her day when she is stuck. mean. I don’t get paid a Along with this inspiration, million dollars, but people Klemme asks the Holy who get paid a million dolSpirit to help her say the lars don’t get what I get, and right thing to make sure they are never going to.” that everyone is heard and She said she is glad that she that their feelings are being acknowledged. “I want to be could help students be seen whatever the kids need each when they have felt like they are invisible. Klemme day,” Klemme said. wants every student to be Klemme has been in education for 30 years. Over seen because they deserve to 4
be seen. Through her years of being a teacher, her best reward has been seeing the children of her past students come through. She loves to see her students coming back with who they have now become. Klemme knows that they probably will not remember the specific words she said or a specific lesson, but with her new generation of students coming through, the parents remember that her classroom was a good place to be. To her, that is the only thing that matters. Being a mom and raising her own kids has helped Klemme connect to her students in the classroom. Whether they are a stubborn, difficult student or a quiet, well-behaved student, she wants to create a connection between her and them to help her get to know them better. “The first set of conferences I’ll ask: ‘What do you love about your kid?’ because sometimes kids are hard to love. As a mom, I know how passionate I am about loving my kids, even though they can be frustrating sometimes,” Klemme said. Klemme merges her teacher and mom side to help be a light and an outlet in the classroom. Students leave a positive impact when it comes to
