How a particular teacher made my highschool career worthwhile
Michelle Fong
Broadcast Editor
The dreadful years of high school have finally come to end, and I am still in disbelief that these years that felt so long had gone by so quickly. Coming into high school my freshman year I thought that it would be filled with drama and classes would not be as difficult as upperclassmen have described to me in their personal experiences. I was partially correct though as my freshman year was a breeze to me since it did not really “count.”
During maze day leading up to my sophomore year, I received my schedule and my immediate reaction was “Who is this Savoie, W person?” My friends and I were excited to be placed in the same English 10 Honors class but we were puzzled by this unfamiliar name. All of us started to have brutal predictions of how his class was going to be like which created more tension between us and a teacher that we had not even met yet. During the first day of school we have already started to hear rumors that he was going to give us a timed-write and we were all stressing out and searching up big words that we could potentially incorporate into the essay. When the fifth period began, we were reassured that the timed-write would not be that day, but the next day he definitely left a bad first impression on us. We questioned how we were going to survive a year of Mr. Savoie.
As the school year progressed, we quickly realized that the reason for his initial persona was because he was new in the district and was not sure of how things were run in a bigger school compared to how school was run in his previous school which was way smaller. One of the qualities that I admire about him is his ability to turn any situation into a valuable funny memory. I remember one time he really went off on us about chewing gum and eating in class but then the awkward silence and his facial expressions made everyone laugh after. Another time, we had to do a research project and complete a rough draft. Most people were procrastinating and did not start, so he projected our blank rough drafts through the projector and exposed us. Although that was funny, it reminded us that we should be on top of our school work and have better time management so that he would not get the opportunity to expose us again.
Towards the end of the school year, I usually reflect with my friends about how the year went to our teachers and when Mr. Savoie’s name came up in the conversation, I realized that he helped me transition from an irresponsible freshman to a sophomore who suddenly well rounded and knew what she wanted to do with her life. This all began when Mr. Savoie wanted us to write an intergenerational essay. I had trouble with this essay because of a language barrier between me and my grandparents. However, throughout the interviewing process, I was able to understand what was considered the norm for our culture back in their day and I felt that that helped me grasp onto a closer relationship with both my cultural background and with my family. This was what made me realize that I was interested in news reporting and journalism and Mr. Savoie also happened to be the succeeding Journalism advisor for the upcoming school year.
Having Mr. Savoie as my advisor for Journalism for two consecutive years, it helped me build my interest at a deeper level. Before taking the course, I told myself I was going to just test the waters and see if I liked writing articles and interviewing people but as time progressed, I realized I like the idea of broadcasting and wanted to give that a try. The way that Mr. Savoie had the course set up allowed for us to incorporate any ideas that we had and he just supported us along the way. During my junior year, I started my own podcast series which I was initially very skeptical about but it actually had a successful turn out. During my senior year, I wanted to try something like the YouTube “Middle Ground” series by Jubilee and started “Halfway Point.” Although creating that series was very difficult, Mr. Savoie supported me and my peers and never gave up on us even when the whole editing process became a little annoying. Now that my time being his student has come to an end, I will take everything that I had acquired from him to the next chapter in my life. I am so honored to have had Mr. Savoie as a mentor to me through the most important and rigorous years of my life and I just wanted to say, Thank you Mr. Savoie.
Eagle Era 