Once a Jaguar, always a Jaguar.
Each school year brings changes. There are new students, new courses, and new teachers. But this year, MLEC also welcomed someone very familiar: Samantha Cardet, the newest English teacher, and also a Jaguar alumna.
Ms. Cardet walked the very same halls and sat at the very same desks that today’s Jaguars do. In fact, even her classroom -– Room 5212 — was where she learned AICE Language and AICE Literature from MLEC legend, Joseph Walpole, who retired last year.
She was part of the Journalism strand in the Cambridge Academy before attending Brown University where she graduated with a concentration in English, which has always been one of Ms. Cardet’s favorite subjects throughout her years in high school and university, even becoming MLEC’s Silver Knight nominee in that subject area.
And teaching, she said, was inevitable. It is in her blood — literally.
“I grew up playing ‘pretend teacher’ and I grew up helping my mom grade papers, mark tests and put stickers on them,” said Ms. Cardet, whose mother was a math teacher. “Being a teacher is something that I felt compelled to do, it was a step in my life that I could not avoid.”
So this summer, she decided to listen to her inner teacher. Before returning to MLEC, she spent the summer teaching a reading class for the Institute of Reading Development and then heading straight to new teacher orientation.
There is one other coincidence that made it seem that MLEC was where she needed to be. Principal Diaz is also a Brown University grad who started her own career as an English teacher — a fact that definitely came up during the interview.
“Ms. Cardet is a very qualified teacher,” said Ms. Diaz. “After talking with her for an hour, I realized that she would be a perfect fit for our school and a great role model for our students.”
But at MLEC, Ms. Diaz is not the only one who sees Ms. Cardet’s potential as an exceptional teacher. This approval comes too from those who had the pleasure of teaching her when she was a Jaguar. For them, it is simply rewarding to see Ms. Cardet back home.
“MLEC is a second home. Students, and teachers, spend at least as much time here than they do at their own homes. So, when alumni return to visit, it’s a choice,” said Mr. John Moffi, the social studies department chair.
“It proves that we’re doing something right,” he continued. “Our kids grow up and choose to come back home.”
“Samantha was a great student,” Mr. Moffi continued, arguing that her goodness as a person is just as great as her hard work ethic. “Samantha would not let anything happen to her, her friends, or her students.”
This sentiment was also echoed by Ms. Helena Castro, the activities director, who described Ms. Cardet as a top student with an “outspoken personality.”
“A teacher’s passion is what helps build up a good student, and Ms. Cardet is the right teacher,” she said. “I know that we can have the best students by attracting the best teachers, and I know that she has a passion for literature.”
But just as the faculty of MLEC is proud to have Ms. Cardet as a co-worker, she is proud to be at MLEC to teach the young generation of jaguars. She simply knows what it means to be an MLEC Jaguar — she lived it.
“I think there are so many special students here… I knew that first-hand as a student, and now as a teacher, there are so many brilliant minds here,” Ms. Cardet said.
“I really couldn’t ask for a better place to start teaching officially.”
