Mrs. Zito is a dedicated English teacher at Victor Senior High School, who has also taken on the role of teaching college classes. Throughout her time being a teacher, she has found that her favorite grades to teach are 9th and 11th grade.
Mrs. Zito has wanted to be a teacher since she was in high school and even got her masters degree in literacy in college. Although she loves teaching, a difficulty she had to overcome when she first started, something she found difficult was that not every student is excited to read.
She found that some find reading either hard or boring, and she had to learn how to encourage her students to find interest and the positive aspects of reading. When I asked Mrs. Zito to describe her teaching style in three words, she said “conversational, modeling, gradual.” She further explained why these words fit, she finds that having class discussions about the topics she is teaching is highly beneficial as she can ensure each student knows and understands the topic based on what they add to the conversation.
Modeling the content she teaches has been proven effective in her career as showing the students what they should be doing and how to do it can, and does, aid them in being successful in what they are tasked with.
Despite her life-long passion of becoming a teacher, a profession as a zoologist has peaked her interest. This possible career path was off the table once she learned scooping animals’ feces was an aspect of this job, one that could deter most people interested in this field.
When asked the question, if you could be a student in any of the Victor high school teachers classes who would it be and why, she said she would be interested in being in one of Mrs. Stoutenburg’s living environment classes. She said this is due to her interest in biology and although she hasn’t interacted much with her, she has heard numerous students and teachers say positive things about her, a give-in as Mrs. Stoutenburg is such a caring and loving teacher in our school.
In her free time, Mrs. Zito enjoys cooking and trying new foods and restaurants. I asked her what her favorite meal to make was and she said that although she loves making many different meals, stir fry would have to be at the top of the list as it tastes delicious and is also quick and easy to prepare.
Mrs. Zito has become one of my favorite and most beloved teachers since I had her as my freshman year English teacher. This is because she truly knows how to make a classroom have a welcoming feel and make her students actually want to go to class and have fun whilst being there.
During my time in her class I not only came out of it with new friendships, but with a new found interest in English class, specifically writing. I would like to thank Mrs. Zito for being such an important and loving teacher at our school, along with allowing me to feature her in this article.