Temptations such as distracting-yet-addicting social media websites, hours upon hours of sleeping and violent video games all have the tendency to hijack the motivation and drive needed to achieve important goals in high school. Although these temptations are a lot more enjoyable than an excruciating assignment, there are students who manage to find ways to stay motivated. Whatever the reason may be–parents, future dreams or looking forward to a production–it’s surely working for them. For Freshman Robbie Raso, motivation comes from an annual event: the musical. He looks forward to learning what exactly the musical production is going to be for next year and it is something he enjoys. Raso said that this is his main source of motivation because he finds it fun and is good at it, he said. Well said, Mayor Shinn. Sophomore Alexa Yanyanin has been motivated for two years because of her mother. “My mom was third in her class… So I guess my ultimate goal would be to beat her, although I’m not going to. Yeah, that keeps me motivated,” Yanyanin said. By the time she’s walking across the stage to receive her diploma, Yanyanin would have liked to win Best Dressed and place among the top 25 in her graduating class. As for teachers, she says that Mr. Hartman and Mr. Saludis both keep her motivated when it comes to school, but for different reasons. Mr. Hartman keeps Yanyanin motivated because she plans to one day have a career in the field of communications. Mr. Saludis is responsible for her staying motivated because of the “rigorous curriculum,” she said. Looking ahead at college, Yanyanin would like to have useful study habits down by that time and take away a Bachelor’s Degree and a job from her time spent there. While these students have their motivation and inspiration placed away somewhere safe from any and all temptations, teachers have their own ways to stay motivated to get them through every minute of the 180 days. Much like the students above, Ms. Ionta, who’s reaching the end of her 19-year teaching career, is someone whose motivation didn’t derive from the guiding words of a teacher. “I would have to say that back in the day when I was in high school, there were fewer motivational kinds of teachers or relationship-kind of teachers,” Ionta said. Instead, she found her motivation and inspiration in people who weren’t afraid to voice their unorthodox ideas in the name of change. “My motivation has tended to come from…world inspirational leaders who make a difference. That’s my thing…Like a Gandhi, like a Martin Luther King, like an Elie Weisel,” Ionta said. Along with past renegades, she also finds inspiration in a current person of importance, Hillary Clinton. Although people don’t agree with trivial matters like the way Hillary Clinton’s hair looks or the clothes she chooses to wear, Ionta feels that those aspects really do not matter. “I think that she engages women in the world and shows women that you could be really successful and not a ditz,” Ionta said. Along with that, Ionta also believes that she can show young girls that she is what a strong woman looks like and that “intellect and success can be yours.” On the other hand, Mrs. Hastings, who has been teaching for 32 years both in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and her decision to begin teaching did have somewhat to do with one of her teachers in high school, if only a little. It was her Asian studies teacher. She said her inspiration mostly came from the clothes she wore. “I always thought she dressed really nice, and so I always wanted to grow up and dress really nice like her,” Hastings said. In all seriousness, her inspiration to teach also stemmed from the fact that she thought she could do a better job of making lessons more interesting for students. “I thought I could make it more fun than my teachers did, and I really enjoyed working with puzzles, and so I think of math problems as puzzles,” Hastings said. Aside from treating math like a puzzle, she also loves the feeling of knowing that there is only one answer, and she managed to complete the problem to find the right one. That feeling is also something that makes every school day and every school year worth it. “I love it when a kid says like, ‘Oh, I get it’ and I love it when a kid says, ‘That answer doesn’t make sense’,” Hastings said. She said that she loves when someone doesn’t understand or notices a problem because they’re doing the problem and thinking about the answers they found. For now, Hastings plans to be the “Queen of Calculus,” which goes hand in hand nicely with wanting to be world’s greatest math teacher. Much like Mrs. Hastings, the art teacher who only arrived last year, Mrs. Haggerty, also had her teachers play a role in her decision to be an art teacher. Before coming to Freedom, Haggerty taught art in a high school in Maryland and at West Allegheny. After only teaching for four years, so far she can say that what she likes most about teaching is seeing students achieve things. “I like when students realize they can do stuff that they didn’t think they could. I think that’s fun,” Haggerty said. Her inspiration to teach came from both her German teacher and various art teachers from high school. “They were always pushing me to teach art, and I wasn’t going to college for that at first. And then I switched and went to that instead,” Haggerty said. Also, certain things that she notices outside the classroom act as inspiration for teaching. Before she made her decision to become an art teacher, she was planning on becoming a graphic designer.