Mrs. Baldesweiler is 7th-grade English Language Arts at IMS. She has been working in this school since 2011, which is almost 14 years. Location was one reason she chose to work at IMS.
“Well, I grew up in Woodbridge Township, and this school is not too far from where I grew up,” she said.
Her goal for teaching is not just teaching, but it is also that she can make a comfortable and safe environment for her students in her class.
“My goal for teaching is obviously to teach English Language Arts, but also to make sure students are comfortable, and they have someone to talk to when they need to,” she said.
She runs one extracurricular activity, which is Community Council. In Community Council, the students who volunteered for it help the teacher distribute things that students bought, make flyers for upcoming events, etc.
If there are too many students in her class, she might put them in groups and if someone is misbehaving, she might pull one or two aside and have a talk with them.
The one thing she notices is different in all her classes is different personalities.
“Some classes are louder and some are more shy,” she said.
The only thing in common is that they all like playing games. She partners up the students who are new, making them feel comfortable, and allowing them to make new friends.
To make the class more interesting for the students, she might recommend books that they like. If a student is more interested in sports, she might recommend books related to sports. For students who don’t like reading, graphic novels are the best fit.
She loves her job as a teacher at IMS, “But some days are harder than others,” she said.
The reason she loves her job is because she gets to meet new people, maybe sometimes learn something new, other times, teach something new.
