LifeChanger of the Year Nominee Profile

Serena Powers was nominated by a student.

"Nihao Laoshi, that's what I say every time I walk into my eighth-hour Chinese class. Am I good at Chinese? Not the best, but I still take it because of the teacher," said the student.

"At the end of my sophomore year at Arrowhead High School, I considered dropping Chinese. I had already completed two years of a foreign language course, and my old teacher was retiring. And I didn't know how this new teacher was going to be. A bunch of us in our class talked about being done with Chinese. But now we are glad that we stayed. Yu Laoshi has made us love the eighth hour for the past two years," said the student.

"Laoshi is always in a good mood every day—even with having a newborn child at home and teaching a language that seems impossible to learn. She puts us first daily and knows what each student is doing. She asks us about college applications, our games the night before, or even stuff like girls in our lives. She knows every student on a personal level, so we see her as a friend. It helps her get the best out of us," said the student.

"Not many of us are good at Chinese; we never really got the base of the language (because we all started during the COVID year as freshmen). But Laoshi adapts every day to our level, understands that we are behind, and makes it work. She shows up every day with a smile and is ready to joke around with us. It shows that no matter what she has going on, she tries her best every day around her students," said the student.

"Each day, I might learn a bit of Chinese, but I also know I will have fun in the class. Some days the work might suck, like trying to read a full page of Chinese or having to write about something that we read. But she still makes it fun. Whenever I tell people I am taking Chinese, they ask why I am taking that class; the language is difficult. Well, I do it because the class is fun, and that's all because of her," said the student.