On Tuesday, November 8th, National English Honor Society held their third monthly meeting of the year, which they have on Tuesdays. The agenda always consists of a guest English speaker opening the meeting by telling their story about themselves and their passion of English, which remained consistent as Ms. Gallaher joined this meeting. After such, they discussed their T-Shirt design and their plan for implementing English-based themes in upcoming community service activities, their schedule for reading to the elementary children, and their schedule for tutoring freshman and sophomore students in English.

During her presentation, Ms. Gallaher expressed her love of Star Wars and explained how she wrote her college essay about the characters and how it alludes to religion and mythology. She also recounted some of her experiences as a teacher and what she learned from them, and how she can use it to help other teachers, which is a profession she wants to get into soon. “Teaching, you know, Macbeth, for the ‘umpteenth’ time, reading it for the ‘bizillianth’ time, I discovered new things within Macbeth that were good for me, and they were new discoveries for me. For me, as the Lit major, I have fallen in love with Lady Macbeth’s character. She has the best lines in the whole darn thing, and she gets no credit whatsoever because Shakespeare, in the Renaissance era, has her go mad. Which is what seems to happen to all the great female characters, Juliet excluded, that’s a different conversation for a different meeting… But what I now discovered about Lady Macbeth, I can now take that as a hook that a new teacher could use in their classroom, because it’s something that I discovered for myself and it’s something that I know. Do I know how to teach writing because of AP Seminar and AP Research? Oh yeah. In fact one of the things I’m going to go do after this meeting is go talk to a second year teacher here and show her how to use your databases, so that she can teach that to her students. I feel now that I have, with 22 years of teaching experience, a wealth of knowledge that can keep you engaged and can keep a teacher still motivated. And that’s where I feel like I am being drawn. Plus I’m tired of grading your writing!”

Junior Ryan Kovacs commented on the club, saying “I joined the club because it looks good on my college application. We do a multitude of things in the NEHS club: we go to Oakstead Elementary School or Sanders Elementary to read to the kindergarteners. We also have tutoring sessions where we tutor students in need of help regarding English class. At the meeting this week, we had Ms. Gallaher come and talk to us about a book she is writing. We also planed future volunteer and tutoring opportunities, as well as create the club shirt. I really enjoy NEHS club, and I do plan on attending next year.”

Throughout the year, NEHS club and its members will continue to use their passion of English to touch the hearts of others and help those in the community. Every upcoming junior and senior who loves English and has a grade reflecting such is encouraged to join next year!