ERIN – Former Erin District High School (EDHS) teacher Louisa Cassolato is a 2021 recipient of the Loran Scholars Foundation’s Teachers Building Leaders Award.
Cassolato was nominated by Allison Harrod, a 2017 Loran Scholar, for her impact on Harrod while attending EDHS. Cassolato taught Harrod French immersion throughout high school.
As an anglophone in French immersion, Harrod said she had a lot of linguistic insecurity, but Cossaloto, being anglophone as well, was a great French teacher and inspired her.
“She was very open about her insecurity about it too when she was younger and even mentioning mistakes she made in her French however many years later,” Harrod said.
Harrod explained how growing up, she had doubts about wanting to be a teacher, noting it was Cassolato who reassured her and pushed her to pursue a career in teaching.
Harrod recalled how Cassolato would leave a note for the supply teacher requesting that Harrod lead the class.
“It was terrifying obviously, and you don’t want to be labelled the teacher’s pet, but the kind of community that Madame fostered in the classroom made it so that we really were all a team,” she said.
Harrod said that years later during her undergrad, when given an assignment she would still ask herself ‘what would Madame do?’
“Her voice has kind of been leading me as I head towards the rest of my life and my career in teaching,” she said.
When asked about how she would describe Cassolato’s teaching, Harrod said, “she’s the kind of person that makes challenges exciting instead of terrifying.”
“She was the type of teacher that literally no matter who you were or what you were going through, you knew you could talk to her,” Harrod explained. “She would pick up on things and could tell that something was off.”
She added, “She’s inspired me to never shy away from a challenge and to be compassionate and confident in what I do.”
Cassolato has been teaching French immersion for 23 years. She began her career as a Grade 7 and 8 teacher in French immersion. After 14 years of teaching at the elementary level, she switched to secondary.
“It’s pretty nice to know that my passion for the language and culture and my faith in the French immersion program is recognized,” Cassolato explained.
“It’s kind of like a beau cadeau, it’s a beautiful gift to know that I was able to pass that on.
“I feel honoured and it’s been a privilege to work with a number of amazing human beings over the years and Allison is definitely one of them so I’m very excited that she’s chosen that path and it’s nice to know that I was a part of that.”
Cassolato was a French immersion student herself. When she finished teacher’s college, she knew she wanted to be a part of the program that produced her.
“For me to be able to model that and encourage a whole generation of students to pursue French in some way, that’s what I wanted to do back then and that’s still what I want to do now,” she explained.
Cassolato is currently teaching French immersion at John F. Ross. She said she doesn’t see herself moving out of teaching French immersion, explaining that her heart is with the French immersion students.
“I love to release them into the world as adults speaking beautifully fluent and practical French and hear about their adventures along the way,” she said.
For Cassolato, an important part of teaching is modelling how to be a good citizen and a good human being.
“There’s a little piece of that where I feel that sometimes part of my job is to make sure that that student as a whole is feeling good and comes to school ready to learn and I’m kind of like the first line if something is not okay then I can try and hook them up with support or I’m there to celebrate small victories,” she explained.
Cassolato noted she also has to have fun doing what she’s doing.
Harrod confirmed Cassolato would dance into class or dress up in a costume related to what they were learning.
“I feel like it’s pretty important to allow students to laugh at you and for you to laugh at yourself because that’s super fun,” Cassolato said.
“It makes it fun to see what I’m going to do.”
Whether students were dressing up as monks for a class poem or walking the Terry Fox walk alongside her students dressed as stereotypical French people carrying baguettes, she was always searching for ways to make class enjoyable.
Cassolato said some of the most memorable teaching moments are having the ability to watch students develop and succeed.
“Having students do the DELF exam and having my ear to the door listening and realizing that they’ve really done extremely well, those are the best moments,” she said.
“I don’t feel that I’m slowing down,” she added. “I don’t feel like I’m done that yet and I would love to have more challenges and more students that come in front of me like Ally and the others so that I can continue to do that until it’s my time to change the chapter.”
Due to the pandemic, there will be no in-person award ceremony. To celebrate the teachers receiving the award, the Loran Scholars Foundation is doing a weekly series on Loran’s social media.
