“My History teacher hates me.”

“My English teacher has it out for me.”

“My science teacher wants me to fail.”

I believe that we have all, at one point in our lives and educational experiences, had a teacher whom we were convinced didn't like us! As students ourselves we likely thought this about a particular teacher or professor, and now we hear it from our own high school-aged children.

Confession: I was that weird kid in high school that actually liked Spanish class. Prior to my sophomore year in high school, I'd never had any experience with a foreign language. I was quickly enthralled. The verb conjugation charts, the strange new phonetics of familiar letters, the shared vocabulary spoken in different ways, the completely novel vocabulary that just had to be memorized--it all made my brain so happy in a way I'd never experienced before. And I began to realize that there was so much about my first language I didn't know, like what in the world an adverb is and how English pronunciation rules make no sense.