Waking up early for the first time in months, putting on a fresh new uniform, the sound of new shoes squeaking on the tile floor, and meeting all your new teachers for the first time are all exciting things about the first day of school.
There are also unexciting things like teachers going over the syllabus and mindlessly droning on about reading and signing it.
Walking into Mrs. Cassie Robbins’ fourth period history class was the complete opposite.
“She’s super energetic so you’ll never have dull moments in her class,” said Addie Brown, who had Mrs. Robbins her sophomore year.
Mrs. Robbins is the type of teacher that in 20 years when you hear the name “Mrs. Robbins” you will remember the yarn doll we made in her class, you will remember her quotes of encouragement: “Collaborate with our voices not our eyes.” “Body language speaks volumes.” “Just a reminder you’re old enough to drive a car.”
She brings a new style of teaching into the history classroom. Whether it’s passionately talking about her three children, Fisher, Kelly, and Emma, or passionately talking about ancient civilizations, her energy and ability to bring presence into a room is unattainable.
“She has so much enthusiasm when she’s teaching, you can really tell she actually loves what she does. That motivates me as a student to give my best self to her” said Izzy Conklin.
Mrs. Robbins has been teaching at Cardinal Gibbons for 23 years. She graduated from UNC-Wilmington, and knew she wanted to pursue the career of teaching from a young age.
“My older sister Sarah was a kindergarten teacher and I thought everything she did was so cool,” said Mrs. Robbins.
Mrs. Robbins uses her “mom-knowledge” to make class more fun and easy for students. For example, she helps encourage students to get all their work done in class so that students aren’t stuck trying to cram their work in with the millions of other things they have going on in their life.
“One of the biggest changes I’ve had to make as a teacher was changing my expectations for what students do outside of class. Now that I have kids and I see how many things kids have going on outside of school, I try my best to make sure that we can stay on task during class, so that my students don’t have to worry about doing all this schoolwork at home,” said Robbins.
A few months ago Mrs. Robbins had to tackle something almost every teacher has run into at least once. In this case, it was a plagiarized DBQ (document-based question) that turned Mrs. Robbins into a very unhappy history teacher that day.
“I want students to value hard work and working hard. I think working hard is incredibly important. I want students to understand how good it feels to accomplish something. If you’re going to do something, do it to the best of your ability,” she said.
This quote stuck.
She strives to actively make students better for themselves, for the school, and for their surrounding community. When the next DBQ came around, every student had done it on their own and on time. This just shows all the positive impacts Mrs. Robbins has on students at Cardinal Gibbons.
Everyone knows her, and if you don’t you’re missing out on meeting one the kindest, funniest, and hard working person Cardinal Gibbons has to offer.
“She has given us the resources we need to succeed in her class. She also guides us and teaches us how to write effectively to prepare us for future history classes,” said Katie Grace Duncan.
There will always be struggles in life, ups and downs, navigating through life.
Mrs. Robbins takes life straight on and dances through it.
Despite managing three kids, taking them to school, practices, playdates, making their lunches while also grading papers and making teacher plans, she comes to class with a smile on her face.
“I have found it incredibly difficult to manage young kids and work full time. I would say when my kids were little it was hard for me, because I wanted to put 100 percent of my effort and time into all of my kids,” said Robbins.
She leads by example, and never fails to make a student laugh. She is Mrs. Robbins.
