[0:00] - Good afternoon, eighth graders. [0:01] Welcome back to Language Arts. [0:03] - [Student] She's helped me become a better public speaker. [0:05] - You want to make sure to look around the room. [0:09] Hi, I'm Jody Carufel, [0:11] and I am an eighth grade language arts teacher [0:13] at Olson Middle School. [0:15] I have been teaching at Olson Middle School [0:17] my entire teaching career, [0:19] and this is year number 30. [0:20] I moved to Bloomington starting in sixth grade. [0:23] I had an aunt in real estate, [0:25] and she said, "You have to go to school in Bloomington. [0:29] "They have the best schools." [0:31] We four kids begged our parents [0:33] to find a house in Bloomington. [0:35] I went to Normandale Hills [0:36] when sixth grade was still in the elementary schools. [0:39] Then I ended up here at Olson Junior High [0:42] before it was a middle school [0:43] and came here for seventh and eighth grade, [0:45] and then we were part of the ninth grade class [0:47] that moved over to Jefferson. [0:48] And so then I graduated from Jefferson, [0:51] and then I went on to college, [0:52] but I came back to my roots. [0:54] So when I was in college, [0:56] my roommates and I, we wrote a letter to ourselves [0:58] where we'd see ourselves in five years, [1:00] and, in that letter, I wrote down the man I would marry, [1:03] the car I would drive, where I would live, [1:06] and where I would work. [1:07] And all of those came true. [1:09] When I first started teaching, [1:10] I thought it was really all about the academics, [1:12] but it shifted somewhere, [1:14] and it really became more about helping these kids [1:17] and helping them understand that, [1:20] "Hey, you have a future in front of you." [1:22] And I want to give them that hope. [1:24] I want to help them see their future [1:25] even if it's not necessarily academic, you know, [1:29] that they can do anything. [1:31] Mrs. Koppelman was my seventh grade teacher, [1:34] and she made me feel like I could do anything. [1:37] I can't get through it without getting emotional. [1:40] My gosh. [1:41] I wrote a paper. [1:43] In that paper, I really struggled with, [1:46] "Is my existence worth it?" [1:50] And I wasn't sure, [1:52] and I worked through that, [1:56] but Mrs. Bergtold was the teacher who she read my paper, [2:00] she did not dismiss it, and she pulled me aside, [2:03] and she's like, "Jody, we should get some help." [2:06] Those two English teachers in junior high [2:09] had an impact that they were unaware of. [2:12] Do we remember? [2:13] I don't want my students to walk a dark road. [2:15] Sometimes they need a champion [2:17] that isn't necessarily a family member. [2:20] Sometimes they need a champion [2:21] where they see them in a different way. [2:23] - If you had her class, [2:24] you would understand how like caring and nice she is [2:26] to her students [2:27] and how like understanding she is [2:29] and how fun of a teacher she is [2:30] and how like good she is at being a teacher. [2:32] - Okay. [2:33] - She is a really caring person [2:34] and actually loves what she's doing, [2:37] and she knows what she's doing, [2:39] and you should definitely look up to her. [2:41] - I forget about the influence that I have on students, [2:45] and I ran into a former student, [2:48] and she said that it was because of the mock trial [2:52] that we did in eighth grade [2:54] that basically gave her her passion [2:57] for the major she went into [2:58] which was sociology, criminology, and justice. [3:01] So she wants to be a lawyer. [3:02] There is joy in what I do, [3:04] partly because I know this is my calling. [3:07] and when I know that I am doing what I am called to do, [3:10] there's a lot of joy in that. [3:12] - [Jody and students] Ah. [3:13] - [Jody] Thank you for the participation. (claps) [3:14] That was awesome. [3:15] (students chatting indistinctly)