Bun 1

Elijah Bun

Dr. Blair
UWRT 1103
16 September 2015
The Unforgettable Ms. Hays
It was junior year of high school, as I entered my IB Chemistry II class, I felt a chill
ripple down my spine as I stared at the teacher who would eventually become one of my best
teachers and friend of my high school career. Ms. Hays be can effectually described visually as
an angry dwarf but her personality make her as bright and jubilant as a leprechaun. I as entered
the class, timidly at first, I was greeting with the remark Its Baby Bun!, as my sister has had
Ms. Hays previously I was instantly bestowed upon with the nickname Baby Bun. From this
moment on I knew that Ms. Hayss class would always be my most interesting class- and boy
was I not disappointed. Ms. Hays is one of the my most influential teachers for the sheer reason
that her caring personality and interesting teaching style made chemistry much easier to learn
as well as the fact that she taught us more about ourselves than we could ever know.
Ms. Hays was more than a good chemistry teacher as she understood her students and as
she knew everybody in IB on a personal level and what his/ or her desires and aspirations were.
One example of this is myself, she knew that I wanted to become an engineer so whenever the
material pertained to a chemical engineer or if it was a topic that interested me should would be
sure to point it out to help me find out if I wanted to be a chemical engineer. Ms. Hays didnt just
help me out on an educational level, she also helped me on a personal level as well. One day
when I was having friend troubles and I didnt think my friend would understand me or
would just listen to me and not give any feedback, Ms. Hays listened to my problems, but she

also gave me feedback on what I should do. She told me that the problems I was having with
my friend was both of our faults and using a tough love mentality she told us to tackle the
problem head on. This mentality helped us resolve our differences and we remain friends to
this day. To Ms. Hays the IB seniors were her family, even IB students who did not take the
course, knew Ms. Hays dubbing her with the name Mama Hays. Even kids who didnt have
Ms. Hays came to her about troubles, whether to complain about their personal life, or how
terrible a teacher was. If Ms. Hays didnt know how to help out a certain kid, or if she feels the
situation is something she cant relate to, she would typically throw pieces of chocolate at you
and scream Here! Have some chocolate! I remember once in December when one of my
friends were feeling down she put up a Chemist-Tree; that is a festive holiday tree
constructed of multicolored test tubes and beakers and on top of the tree was a picture of
Avogadro , a famous chemist, with a Santa hat. The Chemist-Tree really brightened up the
mood of the classroom and my friend.
Her personality merged with her teaching style making learning fun and concise. She
would usually draw out fun and cartoonish characters, like when she drew a mole to explain
the concept of molar conversions, to help her students learn it that way. She knew that most
kids needed a visual representation and making it a bit cartoonish, it made learning both easier
and fun without drowning out the fact that they needed to know the material. She also
understood how difficult IB could get and that trying to shove information down our throats
while we were essentially brain dead. An example of this is since I had her class 4th block
which was the end of the day, on rare occasions when she sees that everyone is tired and trying to
teach us in this state would be ineffective, she would make the class easier by trying to lighten
the mood with a few chemistry related jokes or shorten the lesson plan on that day but making up

for it by extending the lesson plan another day when we are much more refreshed. Her jokes
were always spot on and she made a fun classroom environment with chemistry related That's
what she said jokes and she also likened the 8 valence electron rule to Pimps and Hoes as it is
said colloquially.
While Ms. Hays has a multitude of upsides a few downsides are that she lets her mood
dictate her teaching. Sometimes when another period has angered her she takes that frustration
out on us by not being her usual self, while we still learn while she is in this state, it's not our
optimum learning environment. One example is when she assigned book work because the
class beforehand was misbehaving and since she assigned bookwork to them then she felt
that she needed to assign bookwork to us as well. While she did explain the book work with
her own lecture, and we learned the material, we hate bookwork and we felt that it wasnt
the best way to learn.
In conclusion Ms. Hays, while teaching us chemistry, taught us more so about ourselves
and who we wanted to mold ourselves into once we go into the real world. While sometimes
she can be a tad bit feisty she more than makes up for it by caring deeply about each and every
one of her students. Ms. Hays may not be a perfect teacher and she had her flaws, but she
was a very effective teacher who made us learn the materials rather than just regurgitating
information. We know how to apply chemistry and each and every one of us has some
respect for the science of chemistry.