On the morning of Aug. 28, Profe Corrie Crothers walked into school. It was the first day of the school year and she was extremely excited. As the new Spanish teacher, she was ready to meet her new students and teach them a language she loved. She was ready to work with some friends and make new connections. She was ready for the change and to be part of the staff.
After 22 years of teaching, Crothers needed a change. She decided to join the staff as a new Spanish teacher.
“You kind of get to a point in your career and it is like I don’t know if I can be in the same place for 30-something years,” Crothers said.
Previously, Crothers worked at North High School for 20 years. She loved working at North High School but another thing that caught her eye was the language department.
Crothers said we had a large and vibrant language department. One that was bigger than the one she came from.
Crothers has always had teaching in her blood. She knew from a young age what path she wanted to go on.
“I just have always wanted to be a teacher. When I was younger I would play school and, maybe, with my brothers and sisters. I come from a family of five and four are teachers,” Crothers said.
Although she knew she was going to be a teacher, what subject she was going to teach was up in the air. Well, until she got to college.
“I did start out as a math teacher. When I went to college I thought I was going to be a math teacher. After the first semester, I switched to Spanish,” Crothers said.
Crothers chose Spanish for a reason, because she connected with it more than math. A huge part of that connection was her Argentinian college Spanish teacher.
“His accent was really hard to understand, but he was so fun. He came in every day drinking his coffee, kind of bouncing off the walls. And I just thought at that point, Spanish just seemed more fun to me,” Crothers said.
Taking inspiration from her Spanish teacher, Crothers made her class talkative and interactive. She gets the students involved and interacting with the language.
“You are kind of not like sitting there, being lectured. You get to interact with people,” freshman Grace Ganser said.
In fact, Crothers uses many different types of teaching strategies for her students to interact with Spanish. One example is the class character.
“We created a class character, so we have to take a fruit or an animal and do it all in Spanish. And it’s really fun,” Ganser said.
In addition, Crothers has many strengths as a teacher and person. One of them is not just getting her students to interact with her language but also interacting with her students.
“She really connects with her students. She’s so approachable and kind, but also fun and energetic. She’s got the perfect personality,” Spanish teacher Christine Smithberg said.
She really connects with her students. She’s so approachable and kind, but also fun and energetic. She’s got the perfect personality.
— Christine Smithberg
Besides her teacher, another thing that brought Crothers into Spanish was world traveling. She has been world traveling since college and she loves it.
Crothers remembered someone from her study abroad department came, when she was in college, and talked to her class. She wanted to study abroad and, specifically, she knew “I’m going to Spain.”
World traveling impacted Crothers’ life in many huge ways. It changed her perspective of the world and how big it is.
“For the first time you are talking with people and conversing with people about world topics and hearing different perspectives and for the first time in my life, I was a minority. I remember just sitting with my host family and not understanding them and not understanding their customs, the things they’re doing and it’s really humbling,” Crothers said.
World traveling impacted more than just Crothers perspective of the world but also her teaching, specifically. She learned a lot from her travels and brought much of it into her teaching.
“It is just kind of embedded in it, I mean, to be able to not just talk about things we are reading but to share like personal experiences and share pictures from trips. And I love when I have specific stories I can with them,” Crothers said.
In the end, there is a tip Crothers has for future teachers, world travelers or Spanish speakers. Crothers wants to advise people to always “keep an open mind.”
