New to Wilde Lake, Ms. Lynch has become a vital part of the English department, helping create a welcoming environment for 9th and 12th grade students.
Even though it is her first year at Wilde Lake High School, it is not her first year teaching. For the past two years, Ms. Lynch has been teaching right around the corner at Wilde Lake Middle School. While it has been a huge change for her, she admits she likes teaching high school students more because “the students hold themselves more accountable and they actually take class seriously,” she says.
No matter the age of her students, her passion for teaching English has never changed. To Ms. Lynch, the core values of English expand far beyond school classes. Ms. Lynch believes “English is everywhere and everyone needs it,” which is why she chose the subject. She wants to teach her students “the skills in English class [needed for] applications and interviews, and even running conventions and things later in life.” In her classroom, she ensures her students learn everything they need to know about English. To ensure this, she leads a conversational learning style to keep the kids engaged. In her English class, she emphasizes that there is typically never one correct answer. Everything is up to interpretation by the student.
Aside from the curriculum she teaches, she finds value in learning from her students. Ms. Lynch has learned to value her relationship with her students by taking in their feedback on her teaching style and how she can grow. She believes it is important for the whole class to grow together by listening to each other. It’s one of the things she loves about teaching. Additionally, she loves the energy the students give, “whether it’s up, down, but they’re all over the place and [she] absolutely loves it.”
With all the time she spends with her students in her classroom, she gets to learn about each individual student. Ms. Lynch is a big believer in self-expression. Some of her best teaching moments come from her slam poetry unit at the end of the year. During slam poetry, she gets to see her students express themselves in unique ways since they are now comfortable with each other. It’s important for the students to get comfortable with her too. Ms. Lynch tries to keep up with the current slang to stay in the loop of things. She wants to keep the relatability with her students to maintain a close relationship with them. To her, “personal relationships are super important because how is a student really going to learn from [her] if they don’t know anything about [her] or vice versa?” Maintaining that close relationship helps create a close-knit classroom where the students aren’t afraid to express themselves.
Outside of her classroom, Ms. Lynch participates in SGA to help the student council of Wilde Lake. It is important for her to find ways to help her community, just as she did in high school by being her school’s vice president. Ms. Lynch also plans on helping out with school spirit days and running different events. When she’s not helping the school, Ms. Lynch is training for her marathon and supporting her favorite football team, the Patriots.
Ms. Lynch has become a vital part of the English department, leading her students to a future of success.
