Note from the Podcasters: In this month’s inaugural podcast, we had the opportunity to talk to Ms. Liimatta with a surprise visit from Ms. Yaeger at the end. We talked about Ms. Liimatta’s childhood, “nerdiness”, what it means to be a good teacher, advice she wishes she could give her younger self, and more! The article below elaborates on many thoughts Ms. Liimatta shared with us, but doesn’t encapsulate the entire podcast. So make sure to tune in to this month’s podcast and not miss any jubilant moments!
This month, we had a chance to interview Ms. Liimatta, an IB Language and Literature teacher, about her inspirations, her interests, and what she enjoys most about teaching.
Ms. Liimatta is a passionate and inspiring teacher that many 11th and 12th graders are extremely fortunate to have. She spoke about how her high school English teacher, Mr. Burns, who she had for two years, changed her life, and in some ways is an inspiration for her as a teacher.
Ms. Liimatta said that Mr. Burns really treated her and her peers like adults and made them feel heard. She said, “He really listened to us and made us feel we were important.”
Ms. Liimatta is a teacher who, in a similar way, really makes her students feel acknowledged, and makes an effort to not just listen attentively, but add her own thoughts and build on the things her students share and ask her.
As a lifelong learner, and someone who claims she is, “a huge nerd”, Ms. Liimatta truly understands the importance of having a teacher who makes the experience in the classroom beneficial and transformative. During the interview, we asked her about deciding to return to school and her desire to learn about history.
She shared, “So that happened during the pandemic and I was getting very, very bored and I knew that if I didn’t use my mind I was not going to be very happy just in my apartment.”
In many ways, this idea echoed the ideas we’ve learned in Ms. Liimatta’s class from insightful readings from Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. Friedan talks about the way that highly educated women in the 50s struggle to be satisfied with a simple domestic life. And while not the same circumstance, connections can be drawn between the desire to use the mind to its fullest potential.
Ironically, Ms. Liimatta’s desire to learn history was derived from her study of feminism as she taught it to her students. She said it wasn’t even reignited, “a love of history was born”.
We also asked Ms. Liimatta about her own experiences in high school. She shared that she and her best friends Caroline and Trina would call in on the phone and request love songs in sleepovers. She said, “We were just silly together and that’s what the best part of high school is. It’s so much fun when you have those kinds of friendships”.
Ms. Liimatta also talked about a surprising reputation she used to have. Being a liar!
However, she emphasized that her line of defense always was, “I’m not a liar, I’m a fibber. A lie is told with the intent to harm. That’s not what I do, I just fib… it’s harmless. It’s fun.”
Ms. Liimatta’s insight on her own regrets and advice she’d give to her high school self, exemplifies her deep willingness to connect with and share with her students. We talked with her about what makes a “good teacher” to us, and we felt that the excitement a teacher has, was one of the most valuable traits for a teacher to have. (“Teaching is my life. I just love the energy… I just really like it” can we put this in as one of those large quotes to the side)
We had the chance to talk to Ms. Liimatta for an hour, and we talked a lot and shared many tangents that unfortunately we had to cut out of the podcast for the sake of time! Our conversation made us appreciate how Ms. Liimatta is an undeniably special and meaningful teacher, is extremely passionate about teaching, and exemplifies so many traits of what makes a “good” teacher. She is so multifaceted, knowledgeable, insightful, and a fascinating person to listen to.
Reflecting on her own high school self, and applicable to students at Clinton, she would tell herself these words of wisdom: “You’re alright kid, you got it. You’re so frickin’ cool. Don’t be so hard on yourself it’s not worth it.”
Listen to the podcast to hear more about Ms. Limatta’s father as her intellectual inspiration, her deep love for cabbage patch dolls, hear Ms. Yaeger chime in on our conversation about thinking in words or pictures, and more!
