Cameron Gidlow

Background

About Cameron Gidlow

I have been teaching English in Freeport High School for going on 3 years by now. I have now taught Sophomore English, Mythology, and now Senior English on top of being the Head Coach of the Boys' Swimming and Diving Team, as well as an Assistant Coach for the Girls' team. The jobs are not easy. They are time consuming, difficult for a slew of reasons, and are quite physically and emotionally draining. However, they are incredibly rewarding. Seeing the new ideas and topics click for my students and swimmers is invaluable. When they see their work pay off is beyond description, and that is why I do what I do. I had one student recently that always comes to mind. They started the semester struggling. They had a tough freshman year where they felt they needed a bit more help but were unwilling to ask for it. I quickly identified this student as one who had massive potential; far beyond what they were achieving the year prior. As such, I had them sit near my desk. Over time, I was able to talk to this student more and try to help them out. Eventually, we got to our first essay, and this student was clearly nervous. I love helping with writing, so I sat with them and started to help them write it out. They started to ask questions about the best way to write things or even just get started working. Over time, they kept asking questions and gained some confidence in their writing. They did well on the essay, and every writing assignment after that did not seem as daunting to them as the initial essay did. Even though they never had to tell me expressly, I can tell that my help made a huge difference for this student, and that is the whole reason we teachers do what we do.