GENESEO, Ill. — Each year News 8 receives nominations from students throughout eastern Iowa and western Illinois who want to recognize "My Favorite Teacher." We feature five outstanding educators each year.
Geneseo High School introduced a new class for the 2023-24 school year called “Introduction to Education and Teaching.” It's an elective class preparing students for a career as a teacher. Three days a week, they're in their high school classroom for instruction, the other two days, they're getting field experience at one of Geneseo's schools.
About a dozen students are taking the new course, including seniors Ella Pettit and Olivia Marshall.
"Now that I've been in this class and with the kids, it's really just solidified my decision that I want to become a teacher," Olivia said.
But what's really inspired both her and Ella is their teacher Mike Harrington.
"He's one of the key people that influenced, like inspired me to do that," Ella said.
"Mr. Harrington, you're our favorite teacher!" the girls said, presenting their teacher with a trophy.
The two seniors said this was the easiest choice for them. They'd previously had Mr. Harrington for an AP Government class and were excited to see he would teach the intro to education class.
"He starts each class by saying 'Thank you for being here, I am very grateful that you are here,'" they wrote. "Making us feel like we had the choice to come to school that day and he is thankful that each of us is here."
Mr. Harrington has worked in Geneseo for 18 years, but he grew up in Sterling. Teaching this class has caused him to go back and reflect on his education and the role models he had.
"They helped me kind of figure out what I wanted to do with my life because back then I thought, maybe sort of, kind of want to be a teacher, but being around them, it made the decision a little bit more certain," he said. "So hopefully by introducing the students to teaching, they would want to go into the craft because it's a wonderful, wonderful job."
Olivia and Ella are attending Illinois State and Indiana State universities next year to begin getting their teaching degrees. They hope to implement what they've learned from Mr. Harrington in their future classrooms.
"Mostly it's just all the love that he gives to all of his students," Olivia said. "He cares about each and every one of us and he knows what extracurriculars we do. He knows what sports we do, and he just makes sure that he talks to you one-on-one and makes you feel like you're really valued in his classroom, which is something really important to me."
"I think definitely just his caring nature and his selfless nature and just everything that he does for us," Ella said. "It showed me that the teaching profession can be more than just throwing information at students and it's really building relationships and encouraging students to become the best version of themselves."
Mr. Harrington is quick to say he can't take credit but added that he's glad he can be a small influence.
"It's also kind of taken me back to my roots and kind of made me examine the teaching profession and the impact that we can have," he said.
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