When walking into Mrs. Lein’s classroom, you feel a sense of warmth and friendliness. She always says “Hi” to you at the door with a smile, and once you enter the classroom you’re greeted with colorful decorations and motivational posters. It’s truly a positive place with good energy that makes you look forward to learning.
Mrs. Lein is one of the Spanish teachers at Middle Creek High School. She teaches Spanish 1, 2 and 4 and has been teaching for 12 years, 9 of which have been here in North Carolina. She used to teach at an alternative school in New York, where she would teach students that were out on suspension. “I loved that job.” she explained. “It sounds like such a tough gig but I loved that job.”
Mrs. Lein said, “For the most part I kinda always knew I wanted to be a teacher because I always liked helping people.” Mrs. Lein also said that she felt useful whenever helping people with schoolwork. The only problem was that she didn’t really know what she wanted to teach. “My favorite subjects when I was in highschool were usually like history. I loved science and English, but I would say history was probably my favorite.” She went on to say that she had some really good history teachers and that she really enjoyed talking about past events. “Just kind of understanding like… why my grandparents would act a certain way to understand what they might’ve gone through.” Mrs. Lein believes that our past experiences really affect our actions and personalities. “So even the effects of the pandemic. We’re all going to be forever changed… I don’t know, maybe we’ll all be hoarders of toilet paper!”
Something that helped Mrs. Lein figure out what subject she wanted to teach was her family. “I grew up with a really tight family,” she said. “It was really similar to the Hispanic culture.” Her family is Italian, and she found that the Italian and Hispanic cultures are quite similar. “I can relate to being loud and having a large extended family, those sorts of things,” she said. Mrs. Lein explained that when it came down to it, learning Spanish seemed like something really beneficial for her because even if she didn’t end up becoming a Spanish teacher, she would still be learning another language and could use that in other areas of her life. “So for me it made sense even if it didn’t work out to be a Spanish teacher, this was a marketable skill to me.”
Mrs. Lein and her family are from Schenectady, New York. “I lived there my whole life up until I got kicked off my parents’ insurance!” She said that before moving to NC she was working five jobs and none of them were turning out to be full time positions (and they didn’t offer insurance). That’s when she decided to move to North Carolina. “I could see that Wake County was a very large county and that they had a lot of positions that were open.” She also liked North Carolina because it’s on the east coast, so she can drive to New York and visit her family.
Here in NC, Mrs. Lein has her own family: her two kids and her husband. “I’ve got two children, Paxton and Ryan,” she said. Paxton is five and Ryan is two. Mrs. Lein says that she loves to spend time with her family outside playing pirates. “I make a great pirate impression!” she said, laughing. Her son, Paxton, just started kindergarten and Mrs. Lein said she loves seeing him grow up and become his own person. Besides spending time with her family, Mrs. Lein’s favorite thing to do outside of school is listen to live music with her husband. Of course, with COVID there haven’t been as many concerts happening, so she really misses seeing live music.
This year, Mrs. Lein is looking forward to “reconnecting with all the kids… and getting to know all the students that come into [her] room, seeing the friendly faces from last year and all that kind of stuff.” I think this is something that we can all relate to. After being in quarantine for so long, not having a “normal high school experience,” and not being able to see your friends, I think all of us are a bit more appreciative of our normal day-to-day lives. For Mrs. Lein, who loves talking and interacting with other people, it was especially difficult. But thankfully things are slowly going back to “normal.”
When signing up for a class taught by Mrs. Lein, you can expect a fun and bright atmosphere. You can also expect to work hard because although Mrs. Lein is a very funny and talkative person, she also has high standards for every single student. Be prepared to get out of your comfort zone and try something new!
¡Adios!