My name is Marie Carola Behrens, I was a former IST student, I graduated in 2005. I find the reasons for the dismissal of Mrs. Carlile and Mr. Jones-Nerzic completley ridiculous. I have also read on the education forum that other teachers were dismissed, and I can't help but ask myself why it happened, because it really does seem ridiculous. Mr. Jones Nerzic was my history teacher and even though I didn't get along with him that much and didn't actually have any affinities for him, he was still one of the best history teacher's I have ever had, he did all that was possible to help students get good grades and understand the lessons and make them lots of fun. He was so passionate about history and made his lessons so interessting, by using the education forum, IT and by making us reconstitute very important events in history and all that helped us learn our lessons well and get the good grades that we got for IB. Many students saw in him a mentor and he helped many students with their problems, for exampel my friend Justine King, He was the only teacher she could talk too and get angry at when it was not her day and he never shouted or scowled her for he outbursts in class, he was always comprehensive and tried to help whenever it was possible. As I mentioned, we did not "like" each other as such, but we had a mutual understanding and he still helped me get good grades for my extended essay and my internal essay and also for the history exams itself, because he made us practice how to write good essays and took time to correct them and tell us what we were doing wrong.
I find it unjust that he and Mrs. Carlile got dismissed for such ourageous reasons and I am disappointed at the board of directors for having dismissed them, because they had no reasons too. They made the wrong decision for the school and for those students that have IGCSE and IB exams. If the Board of Directors have children doing those exams, then they have put their children in a very difficult situation.
