Michael Teal
Mrs. Jarrett was my fourth grade teacher, and even now as I'm 22 years old, I still regard her as being the best teacher I've ever had. She always knew exactly how to keep us kids engaged, how to keep us interested in a topic so we were learning without even realizing that's what we were doing. With her, everything seemed like a fun game, or like a break from the curriculum. I'll never forget how she read to us, she'd always put on voices for different characters, pace around the room as she acted out different scenes and painted the full picture of the story to us. We'd hoot and holler and go wild asking her to do certain particularly silly voices over, and over, and over again. She delighted in our amusement, which was never hard to come by in her classroom.
To this day, I don't think I'd have even touched a book since the fifth grade if I couldn't still picture her face when she told me that I was bright and intelligent, when she praised me for getting such good grades or being so involved in the classroom. She lit my passion for literature, for curiosity, and for that I will forever be grateful to her.
My children will eventually know her, too. Despite never meeting her. I will forever wish they would have gotten the opportunity to have their world lit up by her like she did mine.
Cynda, on behalf of the CHS senior class of '22, thank you for everything you did for us. We loved you more than you could ever know and talked about you well into high school, long after we'd left your classroom for the last time.
