forced a smile, and said the stupidest thing. She did not frown or utter a disparaging remark; she just nodded and proceeded with the discussion. She was very understanding. That marked the moment when I started to like her. It occurred to me that college teachers were a world away from grade- school teachers. The former may not be as funny as Humpty Dumpty who sat on the wall and cracked his shell, nor are they inclined to reward good students with a star or a balloon. But college teachers also care. They understand the stage of life, as young adults, that we are going through. They have this authoritative, serious-as-hell approach to learning. Now I understand, that’s how it works. As a student I am used to cold treatments from teachers; that’s the name of the game in college. It’s a fast-paced world: here’s the lecture, study it or else you fail. Emotions have nothing to do with it. Mrs. Mendoza treated everyone the same way: we were all special. She was very good at creating a good teacher- student relationship. She was excellent in building rapport and motivating everyone. She did not exploit peer pressure and fear to improve the learning skills of her “kids” (that was how she called us; pretty special, huh?). She didn’t ask or expect too much from us. There was never a dull moment in her classroom. She wore different hats every day: a disciplinarian, a purveyor of information, an evaluator, a counselor, a team leader and a second mother. Every day we learned something new from her. If I was con- fused, I could freely raise my hand and ask her to elaborate on the part I did not understand. She exercised democracy in every aspect in the four corners of our room. There was never a time when she left the classroom for a minute to attend to things not pertinent to her discussion. Her discussions were always
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