Ms. Koepke
French and Spanish
Bonola!--It’s strange word, but a modge podge of Bonjour and Hola is my favorite thing to hear as I come into school in the morning. Although I was introduced to Señoraselle (Señorita/Mademoiselle) Koepke as my French II teacher, I came to know her as a Spanish teacher, my role model, and a friend.
Ms. Koepke has a way of entertaining a class that is rare. Everything she teaches us, she has a personal story about. Even a random vocab word like le cheval, the french word for horse, includes a story of how she went horseback riding and managed to mount the horse that had a thing for biting the behinds of the other horses.
She introduced my class to a foreign exchange program and urged us to try it. She told us about how she participated in a program when she was in high school, and where she met her lifelong friend Delphine, who she continues to visit each time she’s in France.
Thanks to this program, I met one of my best friends of all time, Sybeline. And now, I’m going to be staying in France with her and her family for a month this summer--something I don’t think I’d be able to do if I had never had Ms. Koepke.
Ms. Kopke is also a role model. It’s amazing to me how many students love and trust her, how she can speak three languages, and overall, just how good of a teacher she is. Coming into freshman year, I wanted nothing more than to be a fashion designer or an artist. That dream lasted into part of my sophomore year as well. But after being in Ms. Koepke’s class for one semester, Ms. Kopeke inspired me to be a foreign language teacher and now language is my passion.
About two months into my first year of Spanish--a class that Koepke urged me to take--my Spanish teacher, Señorita Sadowski, announced the Spanish club would be taking a trip to Concordia Language Villages all the way in Bemidji, Minnesota, which is a grueling nine hour bus ride from our school. As soon as I heard that Ms. Kopeke would be going, I knew I wanted to sign up to go as well, even though it would be a trip where I’d be surrounded by fluent Spanish speakers when I knew so little of the language.
On the last night of the trip, the camp hosted a dance. During the song Gagnam Style, one of the counselors--who was doing some odd mixture of the chicken dance and Solja Boy--knocked me in the back of the head, and I received my second concussion. Ms. Koepke was the first teacher to make sure I was okay. She left the dance to take me to the nurse’s cabin, and stayed there until I was ready to head back to my cabin.
The next day, we started the bus ride home. I needed extra help to get all of my things onto the bus, and even to walk by myself. She found me after breakfast and helped me load my things and she made sure I had a comfortable and cool seat on the bus. The entire ride home, she fed me Tylenol, made sure I was hydrated, and attempted to entertain me so I’d keep my eyes off of the television screen. Halfway through the ride, she even gave up her pillow so I’d be comfortable and able to sleep.
Señoraselle Koepke is a rare specimen of a teacher. She pushes me to be the best I can be, and to try new things. She truly cares for me with the way she checks up on me and loves to hear about what’s happening in my life. She gets excited to teach, and she can make her excited. This is why I think that Señoraselle Kathi Koepke is a model educator.