With Christmas being right around the corner many of the teachers and staff have been gearing up for the holiday by decorating all around Four Corners.
Many students think that U.S. History teacher Abdiel Olivero has outdone himself this year with many large decorations around his classroom like a digital fireplace and Christmas lights strung along the ceiling.
“For Christmas I put up many lights and decorations for my class including a big digital fireplace. I always tell students that my classroom is like my house because it’s where I spend most of my day, so I want it to feel like a home for me and my students. When we were putting everything on display it took around 3 hours, but I feel like it was definitely worth it to see all the student’s reactions to the display,” Olivero stated.
Olivero also has some feelings about how the decorations in one’s classroom can impact both students and teachers as well.
Lots of students said my decorations make the room feel cozy and that they feel at home in my class with the light’s warm colors. So, I would definitely want to encourage more teachers to consider trying to decorate their classrooms as well because it can overall help everyone feel more comfortable and welcome at school,” Olivero said.
High School Science Teacher Karen Tripp has been decorating her classroom for the holidays as well, in fact, she has been decorating her classroom in and out.
“For Christmas my senior students Jennifer Giraldo and Alexandria Polohrankis wanted to decorate my classroom door because they decorated it for Spanish heritage month as well. I think this has helped many students and teachers because it’s nice to get to relax and try and have fun at school, especially because the following months can tend be boring,” Tripp said.
Some teachers have also started to show their Christmas spirit outside of their classrooms too,specifically, through the bulletin board outside of Music Appreciation teacher Jacquelyn Pileckas’ class.
“Our music appreciation class decided to decorate a board with Christmas songs we all like, to get into the holiday spirit. We did this because pretty much everyone in our class likes Christmas just as much as music and we wanted to express that. Many kids have seen it and have commented on our choices for songs (and also our bad handwriting). But overall, we think this board may have, if only just a little, added some Christmas spirit to our school,” senior Karina Cruz stated.
Language Arts teacher Zachery Sweeney has also decorated his room for the holidays, although he has tried something different this year by letting students make their own decorations for his classroom.
“After Halloween my students wanted to get into the festive mood, so they made a bunch of holiday decorations. They wrote a little song on one of them which I think is very fun. I think little things like that and decorating overall are very important because your body and senses should be engaged in class. Things like this can help morale and psychologically help students and teachers and that’s one of the reasons why I think more classes should be decorated and incorporate student decorations as well,” Sweeney said.
