State High’s Language Department hired many new language teachers for the 2023-2024 school year. They were Lixian Wang, Kent Dwyer, Kiley Hernandez, Lane Wallace and Monica Hessler. Kent Dwyer, Kiley Hernandez and Lane Wallace teach Spanish while Monica Hessler teaches German and Lixian Wang teaches Chinese.
Spanish teacher Lane Wallace is passionate about the language she teaches and has fond memories of it.
“I absolutely loved Spanish in high school, and then I just took it in college. I had quite a few friends who only spoke Spanish, and I decided that I wanted to share my love for it,” Wallace said.
Before coming to State High, Wallace taught at Bucktail High School in Clinton County, which she reported was pretty different from State High.
“I’m coming from a 7 to 12 building, and there’s only 166 students in the entire building, so they’re pretty different,” Wallace said.
Before Wallace could get to State High, she had to continue teaching at Bucktail High School. Her first day at State High, Nov. 20, was a busy one, and occurred during the second marking period.
“Typically whenever you’re in a teaching position and the year has already started, the current district that you worked for has the right to hold you for 60 days, so they have time to find a replacement, so I was held for 60 days,” Wallace said.
While Wallace is a Spanish teacher, Monica Hessler is a German teacher. Hessler began teaching at the start of the second marking period. Before becoming a teacher, she was a substitute teacher at State High.
“Before I came here, I was on the sub list.” Hessler said. “I thought that [being a sub] was really nice because as a sub, you get to know the building and the people and some of the expectations and routines, so it’s not like jumping in cold.”
While there was familiarity, there were still some things Hessler had to adjust to. She had more work and complex technology to deal with. Hessler had a difficult time syncing Google Classroom with StudentVue.
“I have this desire to use the interesting technology, and I know that students are used to that and they want me to catch up and I can only learn so many programs so fast,” Hessler said. “We all have to be patient.”
Luckily for her, before and while teaching Hessler was helped by former German teacher, Frau Karlson.
“I was really grateful for all the work that Frau Karlson did to help me transition easily. I think she was very kind. She shared all the materials with me, I got to talk to her up to a week before I started as well. We got to collaborate a lot,” Hessler said.
While Hessler had help dealing with change, she wasn’t the only one who dealt with the change. Hessler mentioned how students had to get used to her as a new teacher too.
“I just think it’s a big change for everybody. Right when you started the year and you’ve been accustomed to one teacher and someone else comes and things change. I imagine there was a variety of reactions,” Hessler said. While students may have had different reactions, the language department was welcoming to the new teachers.
“Everybody’s been super welcoming and helpful and all of the world language teachers have been very welcoming,” Wallace said.
At a school as big as State High, there are many good teachers, and the language department was able to welcome five new ones. Wallace and Hessler both believe they’ll continue teaching at State High. While both are unsure of how long they will stay, Wallace and Hessler hope to continue to teach at State High as foreign language teachers.
