Pattonville students know her as the Child Development teacher with the southern twang, but Mrs. Twila Harris isn’t originally from America.

She was born into a Baptist Missionary family of 4 in Taiwan.  She moved to Bolivar, Missouri her sophomore year.

“[We] felt foreign at our new school,” she admits as she talks about the transition to America.

“It was hard because the levels and the order they teach in were different.”

I asked Mrs. Harris in an e-mail what it was like to move so far away so late in her high school career.

She answered, “It was very hard moving away from Taiwan since that was home for me and my siblings. I had many friends whose parents were on the military from all over the world, so my siblings and I knew when we moved, we would probably never see those friends again. Many people stay around people that they grew up with but my siblings and I have lost touch with many great friends when we moved across the world.”

Mrs. Harris says she always does her best to find out what any student does best and to make them feel good about it. “We all have weaknesses in some areas but we are all good at something.”

But what does she do to make the new students feel welcome?

“I find time to talk to them about where they are from and how they feel about being at our school. I tell them where my office is in case they need my help in anyway. I also try and tell them about clubs, or activities that they might want to join. I try an introduce new students to students with the same lunch or sit them by some of my friendliest students.”

Harris says her school experience wasn’t that good. Teachers often discouraged her. She said the teachers made her feel like a lesser student. She added that she doesn’t think they knew how they were making her feel. “Teachers need to realize that their words are powerful.”