Ms. Annelies Groen

Here is what I've written about Ms. Groen for my English assignment. In fact, I received a pleasant and acceptable grade of 95% given out by Mr. Parkes (if you want to learn about him, please visit the previous blog posted on October 6, 2006.:-).


Ms. Groen is currently a design and technology teacher at Deer Park who has an exceptional teaching style, serious environmental concerns and fascinating hobbies. The most unique quality that leads Ms Groen to her successful teacher career is creativity. She puts a tremendous amount of effort into designing interesting assignments such as the construction of a “straw” tower, the production of a “mousetrap” car, and the making of a wooden squirrel. She captures student’s interests by using hilarious jokes and modern machineries such as the scroll saw and drill press. In addition, Ms. Groen often organizes friendly contests to motivate and encourage students to be creative, critical thinking and hardworking. Moreover, she realizes the importance of after-school tutoring, and always makes herself accessible to students. It is not hard to find her pointing to the vivid but eccentric diagrams and explaining the detailed steps in a clear and logical way, or helping girls with the frightening scroll saw in the lab. She is, beyond doubt, a brilliant educator.

Ms. Groen is deeply concerned about the environment. The three “R’s” are always her top priorities. She reinforces the importance of environmental protection and explains how benefits could be achieved by consistently following the three “R’s” principles. When assigning a specific project, she habitually adds details about the potential negative impact on the environment to let the students realize numerous environmental issues, such as acid rain and global warming. She demonstrates how to be environmentally friendly by using good-on-one-side papers instead of clean, white ones for rough work, and turning off lights immediately before leaving Room 109. In order to improve the air quality and promote energy conservation and efficiency, Ms. Groen bikes to school every day in the summer takes the subway during wintertime. Moreover, she has been committed to being a vegetarian for a long time as she believes that animals are human being's friends and killing them for food is cruel and immoral. She is a very responsible and consistent environmentalist.

Finally, Ms. Groen has a number of fascinating hobbies, of which woodworking is the most unique one. It appealed to her at an early age because her father had done it quite often. She was lucky enough to have access to all those working tools and became an expert woodworker during her adolescence. Unfortunately, she is not a very talented guitarist. She had difficulties in achieving decent grades during guitar playing tests in high school, and was cut from folk groups and bands every year she signed up. Although Ms. Groen has kept strumming and picking for over thirty years, she is still unable to play well. Reading a wide variety of books is also very enjoyable for her. She can read exceedingly fast and summarize key points accurately. Thus, while Ms. Groen may be an expert woodworker and a fast reader, she is not a very gifted guitarist.

Here are some bits of information I know about Ms. Groen:

• Dutch
• has five siblings, she is the oldest
• about 38 years old
• has a sister who is a teacher as well, but she teaches in Vancouver, or somwhere in BC

Sorry, but I don't really know much about her. Not as much as Mr. Parkes. It is kind of weird, for Ms. Groen taught me for two whole years and Mr. Parkes only taught me for less than a month. Maybe it is because of the chattiness between these two teachers. Quite frankly, I like Mr. Parkes a bit better than Ms. Groen, though I consider both of them my all-time favourite teachers. I like Mr. Parkes on account of his humour, bizarre hobbies and teaching techniques. I like Ms. Groen only because she is nice.

P.S. Some of the information in my piece of writing (in italics) may not be accurate, for it was merely a school assignment. (e.g. from what I've known, Ms. Groen once actually played in a folk group:)