In past December issues of The Lamp, we have featured articles about TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year.  This title is reserved for and awarded to the person or group of people who has had the biggest influence on the news of the year, “for better or worse,” as determined by the editors of TIME.  This year, though, The Lamp decided that, rather than feature the winner of TIME’s prestigious award, Hunterdon Central has quite a few outstanding and influential people of its own, and thus we decided to feature a Lamp Person of the Year. We collected nominations from students, and voted amongst our staff until we had finally determined that The Lamp’s Person of the Year is none other than Mrs. Penelope Wintermute!

High school can be a very stressful time, with not only the demand for good grades on students, but also the craziness of finding who they are and deciding what they want to do with their lives as college and employment loom. Mrs. Wintermute is so deserving of being named The Lamp’s Person of the Year because she creates an environment for students to do just that: grow as people.  In a school system that is often viewed by students as a place to grow students with good test scores and high GPAs, Mrs. Wintermute allows her students to grow as people.  High school is meant to prepare you for the world after it, and Mrs. Wintermute, as much as anyone else, does just that.  The American school system is filled with tests and quizzes that pile up in every subject.  

In fact, most students even take a quiz that tells them what career they should pursue, but these scores are sometimes not a great barometer for the future. (For example, I once got “professional athlete” and “model” from a career test, and as someone who isn’t all that athletic, and definitely isn’t the biggest fan of getting my picture taken, I’m pretty sure those aren’t for me).  Our society has become so reliant on these assessments, and bases itself on the results, that there is often not room for personality.  But the nature of Mrs. Wintermute’s class is not only one that allows for personality and personal growth, it promotes it.  She takes time to talk things out, develop ideas, and allow students to share their thoughts.  “She allows you to take a stance and discuss it with others in order to develop your best answer and explanation.  

Often, when talking about classic (old) literature and poetry, us teens can get pretty confused. But Mrs. Wintermute always urges, “That’s okay! Keep talking!”  She teaches us that getting something wrong can allow you to learn, which is an important part of life. She also teaches us to stick by our points, and not dismiss ourselves so easily.  I’ve been known to be a kid who can go off on a few tangents, and when I do, I often lose track and just dismiss whatever I said altogether.  Mrs. Wintermute, though, often corrects me, and tells me that I’m on a good track or that I had good ideas.  In a world filled to the brim with scantrons, it’s nice to know that in the “real world,” right and wrong aren’t so black and white.

Part of what makes Mrs. Wintermute so fantastic is her palpable passion and excitement for everything and anything that she does. She can easily be caught beaming at the sound of a good poem, or an insightful comment made in class, but what lies at the root of her love for English and literature is its connectivity– to people, and other spheres of life. “Story is key, on a couple of different levels,” she says. “Plot, and the way it connects humans, and also just the enjoyment of it… but also all that stuff underneath story. And talking about the stuff that’s underneath, whether it’s with my colleagues or bringing that underneath piece to students who may not see it… there’s something universal and unifying about story that I just wanted to wrap my life and life’s work around…  Story connects us to our pasts, and helps us understand our present. It’s all connected, and story does that. How lucky are we?!”

Mrs. Wintermute encourages students to develop their own ideas and become good, informed, and involved citizens—something that is important in the high school environment, the college environment, the career environment, family environment and countless other aspects of life. Mrs. Wintermute truly goes above and beyond the scantrons, the grades, and the test scores, many of which students will forget by the time they get to college.  Instead, she focuses on developing students as people and thinkers, helping them to form their own ideas and learn to become social and productive members of a team.  She allows her students room to grow into fantastic individuals—through literature, and her own teaching—with a real idea of the world and themselves, and that is the best thing a teacher can do, because it’s the people with big ideas—rather than those who know how to fill in a bubble—that seem to be capable of making the biggest differences.