By Katie Huang and Pablo Velez Garcia
With each new school year, Vestavia Hills High School welcomes not only new students, but new teachers and staff as well. A new teacher this year is Frau Rachel Dodson, the newest addition to VHHS’s German Language Department. She joins as a German I and II teacher for the VHHS Freshman Campus and a German II teacher at the main campus. In addition, she is also one of the new sponsors of National Honor Society. We had the opportunity to conduct an interview with Frau Dodson and share her responses.
Q: Could you tell us a little bit about your background?
A: I grew up in Birmingham. I went to private school most of my life, and I went to John Carroll for high school. After that, I went to Alabama to get my bachelor's. I did a B.A. in German, and then a B.S. in Finance. After that, my German program said that they would send me to Germany for a year if I agreed to do a master's. So, I went to Germany for a year, came back, did my master's in German, and then started a PhD at the University of Minnesota. I'm working on finishing up my dissertation right now.
Q: What led you to German?
A: I actually took Spanish all through high school! I got a minor in Spanish in undergrad, but I just wanted to try something different. I had a lot of friends who had taken German, and my brother took German in undergrad. I just tried it out and kind of fell in love with it pretty much immediately. I love the culture and all that kind of stuff, so it was pretty easy for me to choose it.
Q: Are you new to teaching?
A: I taught at the college level. So, I taught for one year at Alabama and two years up in Minnesota, but this is my first time teaching at the high school level.
Q: How’s that going?
A: I love it so far, honestly, it has been such a refreshing change. I feel like at the college level you don't really get to know your students and the faculty that well. It's very isolating and kind of an insular experience. So, being part of the community here, having teachers to rely on, and getting to know my students has been great so far.
Q: How has it been as one of our new NHS sponsors?
A: It's been an interesting process. It's a lot of work. I’m working with Ms. Dozier, though, and she is also one of the new teachers and a fellow John Carroll alum. So, it has also been pretty fun so far. It has been a lot to try and catch up on because there’s a lot of things that happen in NHS pretty quickly into the school year. [Ms. Dozier] and I make a really good team, so it has been nice collaborating with her and getting everything sorted out
Q: What is it like commuting daily from the Freshman Campus?
A: I love it. It's a weird sense of freedom because I get to leave the school in the middle of the day. I’m not here for just eight hours on end. It’s a nice little moment for me to take a breather in my car. If I want to treat myself, sometimes I’ll go grab lunch at Publix and then come to campus. I really like it.
Q: What has been your favorite part of working at Vestavia so far?
A: I feel like this is really cliche, but honestly the students. They are so funny and have the best personalities. Every day, I have a new story to tell about the classroom.
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