Rebecca Graf, recently featured in Express News, received special recognition at the beginning of this school year from her former student, Francesca Elizardo-Dutson, a senior at John Marshall Law and Medical Services High School.
We are honored to have teachers like Rebecca Graf representing Briscoe Middle School. Seeing our Northside students grow over the years and how our teachers help mold their minds and shape their futures is incredible.
Rebecca Graf Spotlight: Francesca Elizardo-Dutson
Growing up having to learn subjects like math and english have been hard because I have dyslexia. My particular case of dyslexia is on the severe spectrum; even though I have always been smart, having this constant battle always made me struggle. I always was embarrassed to ask for help, especially in my math classes so when STARR came I would never do good on the math portion. Having failed my 6th grade math STARR my middle school decided to put me in an extra help math class as one of my electives to give me the extra help that I needed. Young me hated this, I just wanted to fit in.... I was tired of always being put into some type of extra help program because of my disabilities, but that was until I met Mrs. Graph.
Mrs. Graph understood that math was hard, and for me I had an extra battle due to my learning disability. In our class of about 5 even if the others were picking it up faster than me she never made me feel bad, she didn't let me pretend to understand just so I could move on, she sat down with me and answered any question I had, she never let me give up. Most importantly though she never gave up on me, my past teachers would just brush me aside because its difficult to teach a child with learning disabilities, but not Mrs. Graph she took that time to understand me, even when I would fight her along the process because I read the math problem as 4x81(32-5) and not 4-6(32-3). That for me meant a lot and over time it made me hungry to learn, it gave me confidence. Because of Mrs. Graph I would've never taken on an advanced math class much less I would've never chose Ap- pre cal for next year, even though I'm taking a junior year math track, because of Mrs. Graph I built the confidence to challenge myself and
not settle for an "I can't", "I hate math" excuse and do the advanced on level math classes.