Mme. Cook

Madame Cook is the amazing French teacher here at AHS and her love for teaching students has never faltered once. She has been teaching for 26 years in total and has always wanted to be a teacher. She says, “I have wanted to teach since I was a little girl. My parents set up a pretend classroom for me in my basement in Atlanta with a chalkboard, desks, and old textbooks from a relative in California. I was always drawn to teaching.”

Clearly, Mme. Cook has an admirable passion for her profession. Nobody would become a teacher and teach for many years if they did not love it, and she definitely does. “I am so blessed to teach amazing students who are curious, diligent, and very kind. People always ask me how I can stand teaching teenagers but I honestly can´t imagine doing anything else,” she states.

Madame Cook says that one of her best qualities as a teacher is that she is patient, which can definitely help when teaching high school students a foreign language.

As for her academic background, Mme. Cook studied at multiple different places in the world. “I studied French Education at Bowling Green State University and studied French at L´Institut de Touraine in Tours, France.  I received a Master´s in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL) at the University of Cincinnati,” she explains.

Mme. Cook says her favorite concept to teach is vocabulary and grammar through things like current events in the world and culture in different areas of France. “For example, my students are doing an exchange with students in Saint-Louis, Sénégal.  They are working on letter writing via Padlet but learning of the Senegalese culture from teens over there, and it is so fun to watch,” she says.

Her very own favorite subjects when she was in school were French and Spanish. Obviously, she is very fluent in French, and she has also recently been getting back into Spanish over the past couple of years. Back in high school, she says, “I was obsessed with theater, languages, and music. I also did not feel like I fit in with kids who liked to party and such. I loved doing plays and listening to music. I was also able to find my group of friends through our school´s speech and debate team.”

One of her favorite memories of teaching was when someone reached out and mentioned that their father, who is a WWII veteran, had received a medal from the French government for his work on D-Day. He wanted to have some French documents translated. She states, “All documents and articles surrounding it were in French. My French Four and AP students helped to translate all documents, without using Google Translate and presented it to him.  We met him at Independence Village and had breakfast. He was so excited as were my kids to meet and discuss his experience on D-Day.”

Madame Cook is a great representation of someone who doesn’t take things for granted and remembers the small things. Helping translate the documents to English meant a lot to the veteran soldier, Mme. Cook, and her students.

Outside of school, she enjoys spending time with her dogs. “I am obsessed with my dogs, they are the absolute sweetest!” she explains. Mme. Cook also describes her parents and how much they have impacted her. “They are so very loving and accepting of everyone. They see the beauty in every human being and taught me to do the same,” she states.

Mme. Cook is an incredibly kind teacher who always puts her students first and takes great pride and joy in her work. AHS is lucky to have her as a teacher with the kind of heart and passion that keeps Aurora going.

By: Kelsey Krizansky