The Mrs. Maner

 

 

 

By: STEFAN VELASQUEZ

 

Mrs. Deborah Maner, Teacher, Mentor, Family to all who knew her, passed away on February 4th at the age of 65 years old. She had been an educator for 33 years and taught students all over the country on several levels. Born in Detroit, Michigan in the year 1950 Miss Maner grew up in a rough and difficult city but the struggle never hampered her from her passion for science which eventually resulted in her Master's Degree in Chemistry.

In her class she would tell her students stories about how she would conduct all kinds of experiments and even told them about how she used to play with mercury! This enthusiasm and commitment to teaching young people chemistry is exactly what caused her students to love chemisty too, even students who didn't like school still enjoyed her class. Miss Maner was like a mother to most and was most definitely many students favorite teacher because she created an environment of bliss and fun just by being around her. That's who she was to the students who attended her classes and could not help but connect to her, she was a special person to many people that she taught.

While she is one of the most effective and experienced teachers with a long track record of highly successful students though, her methods were unorthodox. Now when people hear unorthodox there is an automatic connection to the word weird, and this is true about miss Maner but not in a bad way.

Miss Maner was weird, but the good kind of weird that made class exciting and fun but also actually learning which had students get really involved and happy to be in class. She made students who hated coming to school and going to class change how they saw education to loving it simply because she believed in every one of her students. Miss Maner never ever gave up on her kids and was constantly encouraging and helping her “little chickadees” to be successful in whatever they strive to do.