Editor’s Note: Over the next several weeks, The Knight Crier will be featuring faculty and staff members outside of North Penn High School, so that the current NPHS students can see what their  favorite faculty and staff members from elementary and middle school have been up to over the last several years.

Interersted in reading about someone in particular? Contact us at [email protected]

Have you ever wondered about your old elementary school? Have you ever stopped wondering and actually went back to visit? Has anything changed? Are all your favorite teachers still there?

General Nash Elementary School is a place I used to know like the back of my hand. After walking through those front doors for 7 years in a row, I assumed it was a place I could never forget. However, I was proven wrong as I walked through those doors again for the first time in a few years…and I walked through the wrong doors.

I wasn’t aware that renovations had taken place about three years ago, which included a brand new security system. The office had moved, the walls were changed, and I found myself questioning whether or not I walked into the right school. I had to ask where teachers’ rooms were, and even still got a little lost.

However one thing that didn’t change was my Kindergarten and second grade teacher, Miss Janelle Catto, who started her teaching career in 2000 at General Nash. She started teaching a half-day Kindergarten class and ended up moving to first grade the next year, and she moved up again to second grade the year after. She has been teaching second grade ever since then, and it has become one of her favorite grades to teach. She loves “taking what students learn in Kindergarten and first grade to the next level” as opposed to just developing the skills they will use later.

But surprisingly Miss Catto didn’t always want to be a teacher. Sometimes it takes a little inspiration to get to where you need to be, and that is exactly what she got. Catto, having previously not been a huge fan of science, found herself falling in love with the subject one year, and what changed her mind was the teacher.

Catto thought it was incredible that this one teacher could have such a huge affect on her learning and her attitude toward that subject. She even ended up choosing science as her minor in college just in case teaching didn’t work out. It was then that she realized she wanted to be an inspiration for other kids, and she chose to teach elementary school.

One thing she loves about her job is seeing the students grow up. However, all of the seniors this year are her first graduating class, so she hasn’t had much experience in the way of seniors coming to visit her. She mostly gets visits from 7^th or 8^th graders who recently left. For the first time this year, she is beginning to see career study students going to Nash for half the day, and that gives her a chance to see some of the students she used to teach.

When she does see students, she loves to hear them talk about their favorite memories. After I had her as a teacher (of course I miss all the good stuff), she would read books with themes to them, such as baking a cake; and so during the reading of that book, her and her students would actually bake a cake. She also hears things such as recess and spirit days as some of the things students miss the most.

What I miss most from my elementary years is her class pet, Ginger. Taking that rabbit home or feeding him (yes, a boy rabbit with a girl’s name) will always be one of my fondest memories. Since Ginger, Catto has had other class pets, including  frogs, snails, and fish. But because allergies have become more of a problem now than they were 13 years ago, she has had to shy away from another class rabbit. Her students seem happy enough with fish though.

“Having a pet to care for every day teaches the kids a little responsibility,” says Catto.

From recess to nap time to class pets, I’m definitely beginning to miss those years when I was younger, and it’s nice to be able to go back and visit some of my favorite people!