English 22
September 19, 2000

School never was my favorite past time. Just about anything would rate above it-cleaning my room, weeding the yard, and watching paint peel are some that spring to mind. I was never sure just why I didn't like school. I assume I just didn't like sitting in one place all day listening to someone drone on and on about things I didn't care about. Or maybe it was the constant reminders I had to be quiet that made me dislike school. If I had to put my money on it, I would say my horrible grades attributed the most to my bitter memories of my education. I never saw the point of waking up at such an ungodly hour to sit in class all day and be lectured. My worst grades were always in history and math. I just didn't get numbers and dates and places, I just didn't care. Then, over the course of a year, I began to realize that those evil teachers weren't there to punish me, nor was I there to punish them-they just wanted to help me.

I transferred to Kaiser High after attending Stevenson Intermediate for two years; I was given the rare chance to start over. There I was the unknown freshman, the new girl. But there I was, with not a soul to call a friend. All that changed when, within the first day I had charmed my way into a group of kids who would soon become like sisters and brothers to me. We became a tight bunch and over the course of high school, cursed teachers, failed exams, skipped class and attended parties together. At this time, school was an inconvenience for me. Just something I had to do before I could have fun. Classes sucked and teachers were mean.

Then one morning during my sophomore year, I was entering the girls' bathroom in the math building. A teacher was standing over a sink, pouring water into a pack of cigarettes she had confiscated from a student. I stood there watching the teacher, listening to her lecture the girls as I thought "Ohhhhhhhh, what's here deal?" I had heard from my friends what a mean and evil teacher that lady was. Her many rules and restrictions were beyond the perspective of any high school student. Her name was Ms. Matsushita, a teacher of her mid twenties who was on the third floor. Which was somewhere I had never been to since upperclassmen had class on the third floor, and I was only a Sophomore, and right then I acted on what little I knew of her, and what my friends had told me, "Glad she's not MY teacher." I thought.

While hanging out with friends and having fun as a Sophomore, my grades took a dramatic change. For the first time ever I had received an 'A' in my math class, and a 'B' in my History class. I was on cloud nine for the rest of the year as I studied to maintain my grades.

Time wore on and when it came time to get my class schedule for Junior year I was horrified to find that I didn't have the same math teacher as last yearin fact I had Ms. Matsushita! For the two weeks before school started my friends asked me what kind of flowers to send to my funeral and told me I should go to my counselor and switch out of her class. The later of the two seemed most appealing and the day school started I made an appointment to see my counselor. When it came time for math, I found a seat in the back row and put my head down to sleep. I woke up to a friend of mine hitting me repeatedly over the head with a small packet of papers. I quickly took the papers from him and glanced at the front page. It was Ms. Matsushita's syllabus. I stuffed it to my bag as I leaned back in my chair to listen to her review it.

"I do NOT allow eating, or drinking." She began. I moaned to myself as I tried to hide the soda can I was holding. "There is NO getting out of your seat for ANY reason. You should have everything you need. Binder, paper, pencils, eraser, calculator and your text. I expect you to bring your book to school every day. If you do not, you will not receive credit for your homework." Again I groaned since I was notorious for Xeroxing chapters as I needed them. "I do not accept ANY late work. If your sick, make sure it's in my box by three PM." I rolled my eyes, another thing I was known for was late work. "I do NOT allow bathroom breaks or drinking water." She continued as I put my head down to go back to sleep. "And I do not allow sleeping in class." She finished as I put my head back up. "I deduct points for sleeping and drinking water or using the bathroom is a no-no, unless it's an emergency, then you may go, but whatever time you take I will get back at lunch." Ms. Matsushita told us. "If your parents have a problem with my bathroom policy, they're free to call me or write me a letter, and I will exempt you from the policy." I sat up as a messenger from the front office came into the room; she handed the teacher a call slip. "Tori, Mr. Steele wants to see you." I smiled as I stood up and took the paper.

I happily made my way down to the office and sat down in Mr. Steele's office. "You gotta switch me out of my math class! Pages and pages of rules. Don't do this don't do that." I told him, "I swear, I'll go absolutely batty in that class. Do you have any idea what all those rules will do to my free will? I'll loose respect for myself as a person, I'll become a slave to order and control, I'll have no say of what I do in my life!" I ranted in a Dawson's Creek manner. "Teenagers need to be free of boundaries and rules, to be able to find themselves in a world where a cookie cutter image of a teenager is posed as bad!"

Once my counselor was able to get me to shut up, he agreed to change my class back to my math teacher of the previous year. I happily returned to class and got Ms. Matsushita's signature required to change classes, I sat back down as she stood up, "These are your texts for the year." She held up a three-inch thick hard cover book, which looked like a twenty-pound cinder block with a colorful cover. Ms. Matsushita then suggested I take a book and follow along with the class since I would be switching to the same class, which also uses the same text. After getting my book, Ms. Matsushita, whom people called Ms. Mats, told us to turn to the first chapter. "Homework on the first day! She IS insane!" I thought to myself.

After a few days, I was again called down to my counselor's office, this time to receive the bad news that my class had not been changed since it was against the 'rules'. So I sucked it up and went back to class. The next day, armed with my math book and a note to get me out of the bathroom policy, I made my way to math class. As the weeks went by, I became friends with many of the kids in the class. Most of them were younger than I, though there were a few in my grade, and even some older than me. One girl, Kristy, who was a freshman soon became my best friend and we enjoyed many private jokes which Ms. Mats was always in on.

I soon found that despite the many rules, (and I do mean many), Ms. Mats was a fun, nice, sweet teacher who enjoyed the company of her students. A Japanese woman just shy of five and a half feet. She was skinny with pretty eyes and a sweet smile. Her infectious laughter and bright smile always seemed to lift the spirits of her students. She was fair and honest, but stern and truthful. She'll tell you if she thinks you could have done better on a test you bombed, or if she's surprised you didn't do your homework-which somehow gets you back to the grind stone to do your best. Class always seemed to be fun, with her horrible drawings, (of frogs) and oval shaped circles or while waiting to turn in my homework, I often would sketch Winnie the Pooh, which she always gave me a happy comment of how cute it was.

But perhaps most importantly, she taught me that math, the subject I hated more than anything, was fun. She would often stand in front of our class, proving formulas to us that other teachers would just say; "It's that way just because," which helped us understand the work better, and would later stun future teachers. She assigned fun projects and made math interesting. Of all the things she's taught me, my favorite is the quadratic equation, which we were required to memorize. But she taught it to us by singing "Row Row Row Your Boat." Then come test day, thirty kids sitting quietly in her room would hum the nursery rhyme as they took the most important test of the year.

As the year came to an end, I spent my last few days as a Junior getting classroom passes to visit her. My mom and I wrote a letter to her just to tell her thank you for all she had done. I had learned more in her class in one year than I had in all the math classes I had ever had. On the last day of school, I went to her class and sat organizing her file cabinets. Once the bell rang, I gave her a hug and left with my friends.

Once summer came I enrolled in Kaiser's Summer School Program and was happy to find that Ms. Mats would be teaching. Even though she would not be teaching the class I was taking I was still able to see her. As class progressed, I often knew things that surprised my teacher, and upon being asked where I had learned it, my answer was always the same. "Ms. Mats taught me."

Summer school was only five weeks and with school starting in August, I was back in class sooner than I would have liked. But this year I was a Senior! Most of my clique had graduated, but there was still a mass of twelve of us. I had somehow been placed into Food and Nutrition as my second class of the day, which I was not interested in. As soon as recess came I went to my counselor to get the proper papers, then climbed the three flights to Ms. Mats's class because I needed to know what class she had second period. When I arrived at her classroom she was gone, but remembering the previous year, I knew she kept a copy of her classes on the board the first day, so her students would know when they could come for help. From an open window, I could see she had Algebra II during second period, so I returned to my friends and later that day I asked her to sign some papers, so I could be her Teachers' Aide.

When I asked her if she needed a TA (Teachers' Aide) I was greeted with a, "Yeah! Ya Ya!" and a smile. So within the week I turned in the proper forms and was going to her class everyday to sit at her desk and chat with her during breaks. She would consult me before assigning tests or homework, which made me feel important, and that my opinion counted.

As the year progressed we became best friends, and though I was sick for a good part of the second term, I knew I could always come to her for anything. She was there through my less than stellar family problems, and my fights with friends. I always knew she was a great person and teacher, but now she was more, she was my friend. Every so often I would get notes left for me on the board of my fourth period saying, "Tori, Please see Ms. Mats in H204 after class." My fellow classmates always thought I was in trouble but little did they know, there was lunch fresh from Kozo waiting for me. Occasionally Ms. Mats would send a messenger to deliver my food during class, since my fourth period, which is right before lunch, is only a floor away.

When I graduated Ms. Mats wasn't at the ceremony. But it didn't matter to me since she had given me my lei on the last day of school along with her phone number and address. I knew she cared as much as my family did, and I loved her as the sister I never had. Now that I'm in college, I talk to her frequently about how school's going, what's going on at my old school, and how my friends are. I've even made plans with her to wake up at 4:30 AM to fundraise for the Kaiser Math Team which means we'll be able to spend the entire day together, without her having to teach a class or me having to correct a mountain of papers.

I don't think there really was just one defining moment for me, it was more of a slow epiphany. I've wanted to be a teacher since I was a little girl, but now I see being a teacher isn't about playing with kids then sending them home. It's about directing them on the right path, watching them succeed and knowing that some day, these kids will run the world-they're the next Bill Gates, Britney Spears and John Kennedy. Ms. Mats taught me this the best way she ever could have, by being a living example. There are some people you just can't ever forget and there are some you just don't want to forget, Ms. Mats is both of those.

This paper is dedicated to my best friend Sachi Matsushita, the teacher who changed my life.