Fanatic and Master of Psychological Adjustment

　　All of you who have ever seen the famous Indiana Jones movies and the first three Star wars movies know who Harrison Ford is. He has starred in dozens of movies that I can't even begin to list for you. No doubt about it, he's a great actor.

　　Now why would I bring up Harrison Ford in the middle of Mrs. Abram's section? To truly understand what kind of a person she is, I have to. Mrs. Abrams has this wild fascination with the actor Harrison Ford.

　　Have you ever found yourself with an attachment to some movie star or a singer of some sort? Multiply your fanaticism by a hundred and you have the type of obsession that Mrs. Abrams had with Harrison Ford.

　　Her desk was littered with Han Solo dolls and pictures and little trinkets. She knew just about everything about him and had just about everything that had anything to do him. She brought a lot of this to school to show the kids.

　　I'll bet you're thinking, isn't this a little unprofessional? You're wrong. She not only did this so she could show her kids that she was a fan of Harrison Ford she did it for a couple more reasons also.

　　I have sat down and figured them out.

　　A week before our first writing prompt, which was a statewide essay-writing test to determine how the school districts were teaching writing, she brought in her "little" box full of Harrison Ford stuff. She stopped class and let all of us look through the bunch of stuff inside the box and we passed it around.

　　She said, "Today is Harrison Ford day, you guys can ask anything you want about him and I'll try to answer it."

　　All the kids asked questions like which movie was her favorite and which character he played she liked the most. Since I really liked many of his movies, I got involved in the discussion as well.

　　When the writing prompt came along, I suddenly found myself not worried about it anymore. Usually before one of these writing prompts the students would be dreading the one and a half hours of pure tedious and lackluster writing. But for some reason the complete waste of a day yesterday talking about Harrison Ford made me completely forget about the writing and the one and a half hours whizzed by.

　　Once again, I'll say it that Mrs. Abrams understands how her students thought and worked. By making us forget about the upcoming test, she allowed us to come in with no stress whatsoever.

　　Most teachers would go, "Tomorrow is the writing prompt. Do well on it. This will decide your future in the advanced English program."

　　This would definitely put a lot of pressure on the students to do well on the test and make them think too much about it. Combined with the new writing skills that I had learned in her class, the new calmness helped me get perfect scores on that prompt.

　　It was very obvious that Mrs. Abrams was quite happy with the results that the class had gotten.

　　In Mrs. Abrams' class, we barely felt like we were in school. The rules and regulations of the classroom were not necessary, because nobody wanted to break the rules. She created a wonderful atmosphere for studying and learning.

　　If you are looking to be a teacher, or have been a teacher, take this bit of advice, which I seem to have acquired from Mrs. Abrams. Know your students, who aren't at school just to learn history, math, and languages. They are there to prepare themselves for life ahead. This is not an easy task when your own teachers don't care about you. Take the time, talk to your students, and learn what their interests are and what their personalities are like.

　　It will make a world of difference in the class, I can promise that.