by:  Karina de Freitas

She says, “I never say never because a gente nao sabe de que agua a gente pode beber amanha.” Translation (We never know which water we are going to drink tomorrow.)  WHS English language learner teacher Mrs. Coelho grew up, in Massachusetts.  She has been teaching for 22 years.

Mrs. Coelho loves teaching. Her students are very special to her. She sees them like her children. For her she chooses to be a teacher because education is the surest way of improving a person’s life, and she wanted to be able to help other people because she knows how difficult life can be.

Mrs. Coelho loves to help people and one of her ways to help the foreign students is to be a bridge between the home country and U.S. She tries to help them to understand this country and support them in the transition. And she says. “I learn a lot of things every day with them.”

She knows Portuguese some Spanish, German, French and she is also learning Chinese. Mrs. Coelho learned Portuguese because she was married to a Brazilian. And the others languages she took in class when she was in high school but also she learned during her life.

Visiting different countries is one of the things; she would like to do more often. She has visited Germany, Italy, England and Canada.                    Mrs. Coelho will never forget the days she was a student at the high school in Germany, learning German. It was a good experience and very difficult.

She loves reading books; she would have liked to be a writer if she hadn’t become a teacher.

One of her students comments. “She is very good teacher, she helps everybody all the time even if she is busy, she takes care of all the students like hers own children. She likes be involved with them and she loves her job for me everybody could be like her.”