Mrs Jeanette Linda D'Souza completed her degree in Industrial relations and Welfare from XLRI in 1965 and entered the corporate world. However, the magical experience of a classroom encounter left her feeling beautiful, complete and fulfilled. She joined Loreto House 34 years ago. With an athletic background, her first assignment was to teach Physical Education, Health Science and English. With encouragement and guidance, 5 years later she earned a B Ed degree from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata. Since then, teaching English and participating in enriching workshops at the British Council, Teacher's Centre, St. Xavier's, etc. has been a fruitful experience of self-study. Currently she is the middle school co-ordinator for Loreto House.

To make the study of the various skills of written communication more meaningful, Mrs D'Souza incorporates newspaper articles. Group study of different styles of communication are highlighted by the students and their observations are shared. To sharpen her students' observation skills, she encourages them to report their first-hand experiences. Stimulating them to think, she motivates the students to use a host of media to construct sentences, expand expressions, explore their creativity and even learn spellings through creative methods of teaching. For example, she had undertaken a special initiative to help her students improve their ability to spell words. Under this new project, she had, on a weekly basis sought to train the entire senior school in the skills of learning to spell. This was a project of six weeks. Another instance, which is recollected fondly by her pupils and colleagues alike, is her letter writing class. She provides samples of actual letters to which the pupils write replies. To quote one of her colleagues: "This was cause for much fun and laughter in the class as various possible replies were discussed. One guesses that what makes a big difference is her sense of humour."

Mrs D'Souza feels that to ignite the sparks of interest in any subject be it English Literature, History or Geography, the characters and characteristics need to be subtly intertwined with the skills of communication. Her creative expression and expertise is not restricted to the classroom, a constellation of ideas has contributed to moving and motivating presentations and projects from the classroom, to the stage or to the sports field. Steered with determination and dedication, her ambition as a teacher, is to mould minds rather than pass on information.

She is an effective administrator who is gifted with the ability to bring order out of sheer chaos. Mrs D'Souza is the person who can work out arrangements right down to the last detail. She has the ability to translate ideas into action, not to speak of her role as a real harbour in the storm for all her colleagues.