Meredith Mente is known around the school for her unique approach to education and engaging classroom experience, not to mention her fun-colored hair. She not only loves teaching but also aims to understand and interact with each student who walks through her door.

Mente had a desire to teach since a young age. She recalled early memories of setting  up classrooms for her dolls. She would go on to create name tags for the dolls and assemble them in lines. Her elementary school teachers furthered her passion, and her passion increased with age. 

When asked about her favorite part of teaching, Mente beamed while speaking of her students: “Working with teenagers is fantastic in so many ways.” She went on to explain the many stories she has accumulated through the years. 

“Whenever I get together with people who work in an office, I am the entertainer because I’m the one that can talk about, you know, all the jokes with the teenagers. […] There are definitely a lot of really strong memories” Mente stated. 

To counteract the chaos of teaching teenagers, she aims to create a safe place for her students to learn, so she arranges her room in an intentionally peaceful manner. Mente’s classroom is a space that welcomes and reflects the gift of beauty. 

She said, “To us, the world is a very dark place. There are a lot of spots of beauty in the middle of it all to remind us of what really matters, to speak to the soul of humanity. So I’ve tried to reflect some of that in the way that I structure my classroom.”

In her effort to create this sacred space, she reflects the peace of nature in her room through a beautiful tree tapestry hung on her wall, and her room has great natural lighting through the large windows through which students can gaze at the sky.

Mente hopes that her students will thrive in this carefully thought-out environment; she states, “Like the trees, students should be growing and reaching higher.”

With growth in mind, Mente wants her students to learn lessons that can carry them beyond the classroom.  

One of the lessons is the importance of language. Mente considers language to be “close to the heart of God” as she explains, “God created the world by using language. He used the word of his mouth to create something out of nothing and that is how we also can create something . . . [or] create a process of or experience [out of] nothing.” 

Mente also regards the power of language as, “the way that we speak, the way we write, the way we communicate has huge power in this world. Nations have fallen over a single word.“ She continues, remarking, “language is one of the most powerful tools that we can use to get [something that matters] done.” 

The power of language applies equally to every student as she states, “every single kid in this school, with no exception, is going to be a leader in their families, in their businesses, in their communities, in their world.” 

With this leadership comes power, and with power comes great responsibility. Mente stresses the importance of words due to the power that they hold. They are more than just syllables, they hold substance that can create great harm, but also lead to great changes.

Another lesson Mente hopes her class will learn is that beauty is found in everything. 

She states, “I think it’s very important that the people I teach learn that it’s good, it’s healthy, it’s [a] necessary part of the human experience to take a pause and recognize that there is beauty in this world around us.” 

There is beauty all around us: in creation, in objects, in paintings and in words. Words are far more than simply ink on a page. For Mente, literature is an art form communicating deep truths. 

She states, “But literature is largely art and so studying how that art impacted the worlds in the time that they were written and since can teach us to better recognize and learn to work with it.”

Mente’s perspective is greatly treasured and appreciated within the hallways of Carmel. Former student Hailey Martens states,“Ms. Mente pushes you hard, but there is purpose behind every single thing she does.” Martens appreciates the intentionality that her classroom offered her as a student, noticing the little details of her teaching. 

Mente stated that every student holds potential: “You’re on the cusp of your life, […] you’re already working in really powerful ways in your worlds right now. Getting to watch people learn and grow over time is really incredible. I deem it to be a gift.”