Ms. Johansen is so sweet to me and all her other students this year. I’m thrilled to say she’s one of my favorite STEM teachers. When I had her, she did STEM, now she’s doing math, and I can tell she’s pleased with it. I’m very proud of Ms. Johansen since it can be difficult to be a teacher; she works hard every day to make sure her students get what she’s teaching them.
I’m so happy that I’m able to talk to her because she knows how to calm a situation. When I had her, a lot was going on in the classroom, but she didn’t get angry; she spoke to everyone calmly. She’s a great teacher, a great communicator to students and adults, she’s very sweet, funny, and she’s a teacher you can talk to about anything. She’s a sweetheart to every student. Not only that, but she’s very gentle with her words when she speaks to students. Not only that, but she knows how to connect with her students by communicating, having fun, laughing, and understanding each other’s differences equally.
She makes every class interesting. I loved when we would get people to sign our paper if they had colored eyes, a dog, and more! I loved her projects; she would assign them to us, and I loved every single one of them. Her class isn’t the same thing over and over again. I got to learn different stuff every day without getting bored. I also loved when we would learn about living organisms.
Some of her favorite hobbies to do outside of school are to boulder and do aerial yoga/aerial silks. Bouldering is rock climbing without a harness. You don’t climb as rock climbing, either, and the ground is a giant crash pad. Aerial yoga is done with a hammock, and you get to flip upside-down. Ms. Johansen has always wanted to become a teacher, ever since she was a little girl, when she would play teacher with her little sister. She was the teacher, and her little sister was the student. Her mom is a teacher, so she would spend her time in her classroom helping her with things such as grading papers or cutting things out that her mom laminated. When she got older, she would help teachers at her school as well. She always knew she loved helping others learn.
She really loves connecting with students the most. This year, she got numerous students saying they actually like math now. I’m so proud of her because there are many kids who really do hate math, and she made them change their minds and their perspective on math. She loves it when she sees a change in a kid’s math grade because that means to her that she’s doing something right, and she is! She likes to think about how she can make an impact on students’ lives by being a caring and kind teacher who cares about the process of learning and that it’s okay to make mistakes, but the biggest thing is not to give up and keep trying. But she has her downs about teaching and has not had enough time to work while at school. Unfortunately, there isn’t ever enough time in the school day to do all the things she needs to do, such as grading work, planning, prepping materials, communicating with parents, etc. She wishes that she could have more time, but that isn’t possible with her schedule.
She tries to make math fun and explains why we do the things we do. Every Wednesday, they do stations where students are doing different games that help with math fact fluency or review skills they already know. She also tries to remind the students that she cares about the effort; she doesn’t expect everything to be perfect, and she thinks that it helps if there isn’t so much pressure on the students, since that can make them stress even more. She believes that math is important because we use it in everyday life. They work on adding, subtracting, and multiplying decimals (positive and negative). Currently, she tries to relate it to money. When you owe money and then borrow more money, you have a larger negative number. Cooking, baking, and building things require measuring. Math is used in so many ways, and sporadically, we all forget that it’s part of our daily lives. Ms. Johansen understands.
