I would like to nominate Sydney Thomas from the junior high building in Syracuse arts academy. She is one of those teachers that the world is starting to miss. She teaches history like no one else. All the other history teachers I’ve had just gave us the textbook and a worksheet. Mrs. Thomas tells us the stories. She tells them like they actually happened. She puts in occasional jokes and helps us memorize presidents with funny songs. Other history teachers just stand up at the front of the classroom and lecture all day long in a monotone voice and the students are so bored they’ve passed out on the floor! Mrs. Thomas helps us, helps me, relive the past. I’ve loved history all my life, but I hated the teachers I had that taught it. After a few years it made me start to hate History. Just when I was about to give up on it, Mrs. Thomas came along. She ignited the flame of patriotism in me again when I had thought it could never again be bright and strong. She makes school worth going to. She still gives us homework and makes us read the textbook and take millions of notes, but while she makes us do that she tells us the story. She talks about it like an award winning motion picture or a Newberry book. Mrs. Thomas helps us learn by the history of our ancestors. She knows that if we don’t learn our history the right way, we are doomed to repeat it.
–Brianna Brenchley