Out of all the McIntosh teachers, English teacher Lynne Bruschetti was recently selected as teacher of the year by the school. Mrs. Bruschetti has been teaching high school for 30 years.  Almost all of these years have been sent at McIntosh; Mrs. Bruschetti did briefly teach one semester at Starr’s Mill, but she soon returned to McIntosh. Mrs. Bruschetti has taught all four of the high school grade levels, but she currently teaches Gifted 9th grade and 10th  grade College Prep.

She said, “I plan on retiring next year, and I can’t think of a better close to my career than receiving this recognition from my colleagues.  I consider McIntosh teachers as some of the smartest people I know, so having them vote for me is amazing. There was not a ceremony, but the administrators surprised me by entering my classroom with a bouquet of flowers.”

Awards like the Teacher of the Year award can sometimes change a person, but Mrs. Bruschetti says she hasn’t changed. She said, “The award hasn’t changed how I teach, but it does remind me how much I appreciate my job.  My students challenge me each day.  I’m never bored, and I never look at a clock, wondering when it’s time to go home.  I’m having too much fun.”

Many of Mrs. Bruschetti’s former students were anxious to express their appreciation for the long-time teacher. Junior Tori Archbald said, “She’s a pretty rad teacher. She taught us sword-fighting, and one time we had to make masks; that was fun. I just really liked the way that she taught; she had an original way of coming about teaching, and it was really effective.”

Junior Marguerite Stonier said, “Well, at first it was really tough just because of the switch [from middle to high school], and she wasn’t an easy grader, but I don’t feel bad about that. I think it helped me out in the long run because she was so demanding. She found interesting ways to teach us. I remember, for one of the books we were reading, we came out here [to the courtyard], and she taught us fencing one day. The last day I had her we came outside in the courtyard; we were all dressed as our favorite book or movie character that we had studied in class, and we all had to act in character and had this big group discussion about all the literary works. I dressed up as Neil from “Dead Poets Society”. I think she was probably one of my favorite English teachers because she found interesting ways to teach us, and her tests weren’t ‘What was the plot of this book?’ or ‘What did this character do?’ They were ‘Analyze this quote and use it in an essay’.”

Sophomore Joie Zhou said, “Mrs. Bruschetti really helped us exemplify our creativity, and she always gave us opportunities to use our projects to our advantage and to use our interests. Whenever we had socratic seminars or discussions about a book or anything, she would allow us to express what we thought about the book and share our opinions. The class really helped me find my style of writing and find how I like to express my writing. She gave us a lot of opportunities to finish our assignments but in our own way.”