February Teacher Feature: Ms. Rodig
Photo submitted by Rodig.
Evan Rosenau
A graduate of Hamilton High School and UW-Platteville, this month’s featured teacher is a relatively new addition to Hamilton’s faculty, this being her second year at Hamilton and her eighth teaching overall. Ms. Rodig is the proud companion of her 21 year old cat, Toby, who’s been with her for 17 years. A wonderful aunt to three nieces and one nephew, Rodig enjoys sewing and historical costuming, drawing, playing the piano, and Dungeons and Dragons. Most importantly, she wanted to let students know that “DC Comics beats Marvel everytime.”
Read on to learn more about this dedicated Com Arts teacher:
What song do you know all the lyrics to?
“Unmarked Helicopters” by Soul Coughing
What superpower would you like to have?
Teleportation! It saves time and money, and would be quite a safe way to travel.
If you won 100 million dollars, what would you buy first?
A Queen Anne style house on a nice patch of wooded land.
What would your perfect room/classroom look like?
It has at least one couch for kids to argue over before Independent Reading time, and a wall of built in bookshelves.
Are there more wheels or doors in the world? Why?
That’s a toughie. On one hand more things with wheels have more than one wheel, but things which have doors vary in the number of doors to an exorbitant degree. It feels like there are more cars per capita but cars also have doors…my first instinct is to say wheels, but I’ll go with doors, I suppose, after considering it. Wait no…there are wheels on chairs and more chairs in office buildings than there are doors. So, wheels. Final answer.
What Crayola Crayon color are you? (The more specific the better!)
Vivid Violet
If you could trade classrooms with any teacher at Hamilton, who would it be and why?
One of the rooms in the World Languages hallway—I don’t remember the number, but it had windows. That room used to be Mr. Pechanach’s and APUSH was one of my favourite classes, so I’d like to be back in that room.
If you weren't teaching, what would you do?
I would be writing horror novels while holed up in a cabin somewhere.
Describe yourself in one sentence.
A photo of me appears in the dictionary as an addendum to the definition of ‘eclectic’.
What unsolved mystery do you wish you knew the answer to?
Does the Bermuda Triangle count?
What would students be surprised to know about you?
Some students already know this, but I’m a huge metalhead. This year, the Metal Festival that I attend annually begins the day that school lets out. I’ll be rocking all the way to Madison as soon as I’m free and clear.
What’s your favorite college memory?
Winning the canoe sinking competition that was held in the campus pool. Our team was called “This Is Sparta!” and we weren’t just the last ones floating, but also managed to get out of the canoe without tipping it even after the competition ended. It was all down to our perfectly chosen team so that we could have weight evenly distributed throughout the canoe, preventing us from capsizing.
What’s the funniest or most embarrassing thing that’s happened to you as a teacher?
I was walking down an aisle and I caught a student’s backpack strap with my foot. I didn’t notice and went down backwards in the middle of my lecture. I had a great laugh, but my kids were freaked out.
What would you rather do: Meet your future self or go back in time and talk with your past self? Why?
Neither. I’m content with the now. Who I was and who I will be are certain to be flawed, but I have no desire to change those things. Who I am is authentic and knowing too much—as all good English teachers should be aware—is definitely a mistake.
What’s the best gift you’ve ever received/given?
Three years in a row I gave my nephew, Matthew, the Lego kit for Road Plates for Christmas, so he could expand his Lego city. Every year he told me that it was his favourite present. I call that a win.
What skill would you like to master?
Tailoring clothes or speaking German. I used to be better at German, but if you don’t use it, you lose it. Being fluent would be amazing.
What’s your favorite place on earth?
Park Jasmund on the Island of Rügen in Germany, or the backyard of the home that I grew up in right here in Sussex, WI.
Who are your teacher besties?
Kristin Miller and Heidi Kawczynski!
What is the best advice you have received?
Be unapologetically yourself!
Favorite book?
The Lord of the Rings is the answer that I give people when they ask me, but the truth is that by some matter of luck, I rarely read a book I don’t end up loving and that makes picking really difficult.
Check out past Teacher Features:
