Recently, Ms. Katherine Valenti was hired as Team Hele’s substitute language arts teacher. She has only been teaching for 3 months, since she recently graduated from Baldwin Wallace University with a degree in English. Growing up, Ms. Valenti’s mother was a second grade teacher, which inspired her to become a teacher as an adult.

Before Ms. Valenti came to Mayfield, she was a student teacher and taught at Willowick Middle School for grades 7 through 8. She became a language arts teacher because she loves reading and writing, and would like to channel that passion to other students. Her favorite lessons to teach involve creative writing, because she “loves to have kids come up with their own creative stories”.

Ms. Valenti is not perfect, though; in fact, she was nervous on the first day of teaching! “It’s scary going into a new environment, since you never know how the kids will react,” Ms. Valenti said. When asked if she looks forward to future classes with MMS students, she responded by saying that she is definitely excited, and loves being around kids.

One of her biggest concerns while teaching is not being able to engage students. The most challenging part of teaching, according to Ms. Valenti is that “sometimes you have a lesson plan, but that plan does not always go as expected. It is extremely important to always have a plan B”. One of the most rewarding parts of teaching,however, is “when that lightbulb goes off, and everyone suddenly understands what you are trying to say”.

Some of Ms. Valenti’s hobbies outside of teaching are mainly focused on reading and writing her own stories. “If I could live off of writing stories, that would be the dream!”. Some of Ms. Valenti’s favorite books are by Meg Cabot, the author of Princess Diaries, as well other fantasy stories. She is also fascinated by history, because “you get to find out facts about people and places where you weren’t alive in!”.

Her students have described her as quirky, outgoing, caring, understanding, and very thorough in her work. As a middle school student, she described herself as “kind of nerdy”. Some advice she has for other middle school students is: “In middle school, you think you have it all figured out when, in reality, you actually don’t. The older that you get, the more you will understand the world and become comfortable with just being yourself”.

Through all of her quirks and her love of literature, students love Ms. Valenti and hope that she continues to teach at Mayfield Middle School.