Mrs. Filskov, now in the second semester of her first year at RHS, has been a teaching French in Vermont high schools the past five years, but she started her career headed in a very different direction “I worked in business,” she tells me. “I spent several years specializing in Luxury Goods as an Equity Sales Assistant on Wall Street.”

Making the leap from equity sales assistant to high school French teacher was no small feat, yet she describes her decision to change careers as a simple, serendipitous moment of spontaneous realization. “This may sound like a cliché but…I just woke up one morning and suddenly knew I wanted to be a teacher.”

A year passed before she acted upon this particular instinct. After marrying and moving to Vermont, she entered her first year of graduate work at Bennington College. “It’s a very small school,” she says. “I was going through a lot of life changes all at once, but I adjusted to life in Vermont very quickly. Now, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.”

Studying the following year at UMass Amherst, Mrs. Filskov spent a year living in Toulouse, France. There, she taught English and mastered both her language and teaching skills in the process.

She also spent a week of this time traveling in Morocco, an experience she reminisces on with great fondness; “I’d love to go back.”

An enthusiastic proponent of abroad living, she highly recommends foreign travel. “I think that everyone should experience life in another country at some point in their lives. It really changes the way you perceive your life and the world around you. You get perspective that you can’t get otherwise.” Mrs. Filskov spent her own junior year of high school in France. She says she spent most of her time “taking language intensives and lying on the beach.”

Returning to the states, Mrs. Filskov took a teaching assistantship, instructing undergraduate French courses in exchange for a large cut in tuition. She graduated in 2005 with a Master’s Degree in Arts and Teaching French and Francophone Studies, which is “such a long title,” she jokes.

Mrs. Filskov took a position at Poultney High School, where she taught for a few years while waiting for an opening here at Rutland. She says she “really wanted to be a part of the RHS team. When the job became available, I jumped at it”

Here, Mrs. Filskov is a 2nd and 3rd year French instructor. She speaks only with fondness for those students and faculty whom she has met and taught thus far. “I’ve loved getting to know all of these great kids,” she says. But what do her students think of her? “I’m sure a lot of them would complain I’m too demanding,” she says. “That’s just my teaching style.”

“I’m like a cheerleader,” she says. “I’m constantly pushing my students to give me their best effort. But I try to keep a good sense of humor in the classroom as well.”

When asked what she thinks of Rutland High, Mrs. Filskov responds. “I’m so impressed by the range of classes students can enroll in here, and by all the extracurriculars they can take part in as well.” She smiles. “There is so much opportunity here.”

Story by Sam Lucci, 11th grade student at RHS