Ms. LaRosa is a great teacher and person to know. She is an expert in almost all areas of her subject: Social Studies. She can answer almost any question that you have about any history topic and if she can not she can point you to somewhere that has the answer. She also has a good sense of humor and is always saying different funny quotes from her favorite movies.
Although she has a hearing aid she does not let that run her down as being a great teacher. She tells the class on the first day and tells us not to let it get in the way of our learning and not to treat her any differently.
She also thoroughly enjoys giving alternate assessment rather than giving a classic test. When she does give tests we usually have a break or several weeks to study. One way that is the class’s favorite is stations. Stations are when our tables of four or five become our groups and we cycle through four various activities such as for Ancient China putting together a sentence and writing it using ancient symbols. Each station takes approximately 40 minutes to complete.
Ms. LaRosa has a policy that not many teachers give a second thought to. That is writing in cursive. As soon as second semester hits you better be ready because you will have to write in cursive. All through first semester Ms. LaRosa provides you with various cursive packets and resources so that your cursive is the best that it can be. Ms. LaRosa always says that she has a reason for everything that she does. Her reason for cursive was just recently unveiled to us. Cursive forces you to think in words and not letters as does print because you are not picking your pencil up off of the paper. Also it has been proven that people who write in cursive do better on standardized tests.
Many teachers do not reward you as an individual for being a good citizen and student. But Ms. LaRosa does. Ms. LaRosa has something called chances. If you do your homework every day in the marking period you get 10 chances. If you loan somebody materials you get a chance. If the class does not talk during a fire-drill everybody gets a chance. Also if a substitute leaves a good report, everybody gets two chances. Then, at the end of every month there is a chance drawing where you can enter your chances and win one of various prizes. If your name on a chance is pulled again you get to keep that chance.
Ms. LaRosa is very hands on. The class gets to do various fun and exciting things such as papermaking in the 6th and colonial candle dipping in the 8th grade. Ms. LaRosa also uses real life examples from her own life, such as things that her daughter has done that relate to our studies or during papermaking useful ideas on how to use the beautiful handmade paper. One of Ms. LaRosa’s very unique and thoughtful policies is that once you reach the 8th grade you are permitted to chew gum in her class. Many students appreciate that policy. Ms. LaRosa also has a very unique and powerful trust with her students. She is able to leave her purse on her desk open because she trusts that no one will touch it or any of its contents.
Ms. LaRosa also does a large unit on geography. She feels that it is very important to know how ancient cultures developed. During stations almost always there is a map station. If she had to give a final exam it would be one question: how did geography affect ancient cultures development.

Ms. LaRosa also runs Model Congress and Model UN. She organizes the club and then takes them to the competition at Montclair High School where they compete against the other 3 Montclair middle schools. She always keeps the spirit and is not too competitive either. One thing that Ms. LaRosa always says is being here is reward enough. Ms. LaRosa also tells of how she chose to go into teaching over the higher-salary Wall Street job.

Ms. LaRosa is a great person and teacher who is always there for you, I feel like I can tell her anything.