Red Notes in the Margin by Alena

Red Notes in the Margin by Alena - July 2022 Scholarship Essay

My grandma has a saying; she says, “Nobody in this world for nothing”. And although grammatically it makes no sense, there is a strong meaning behind it. This saying emphasizes that there is reason behind coincidence and that the people in our lives are there for a specific purpose. There are billions of people in the world, yet on average we interact with about a thousand in our lifetime, and my grandma believes that it was orchestrated as such. Now, whether I believe that or not is still up for debate, but I do know that I would not be going into the field of education without the influence of my past teachers.

I could go on and on for hours about the teachers whom I have admired and have instilled a love of education and learning within me. I could write about how my teachers have supported me and helped guide me into the field that I love; and how I would like to see more of this in education within the next decade. But I won’t.

Instead I have decided to write about the teacher who made me question my choice to go into the field of education and made my life as a student more difficult than necessary. I choose to write about what this teacher has shown me needs to be changed about the field of education.

As an incoming freshman into a new school, I was excited to be admitted into the honors biology class. Genes and DNA had fascinated me all throughout middle school and I was excited to further my knowledge in that subject. My teacher was the kind that stands in the front of the room with a slideshow he created in 2014 queued on the screen that he read off of for the entirety of the class period. That year I barely understood a single assignment in the classroom because I was unable to retain any of the information spewed at me for forty minutes at a time. I remember the night before a test I was so frustrated with my lack of understanding that I re-read the chapter in our textbook twice and spent over three hours reviewing my scattered notes. As my teacher passed back our exams, mine landed on my desk flipped over so that it was face down, a sure sign that the score I received was less than great. I turned it over. 34%. I fumbled through the test with shaky hands desperately trying to understand how I had failed so miserably. Then I saw it; the note my teacher had left within the margins of my test in bright red pen.

"Did you even study?"

As society advances and expands, classroom expectations become more rigorous and unattainable. Teachers and students alike stretch themselves thin in order to fulfill what is expected of them. Teachers are forced to teach to the test and students are made to memorize concepts instead of fully understanding them. A common way I have noticed teachers achieve this goal is by lecture based classes which consist of the teacher speaking directly at the class for most, if not all, of the class period. In addition, many teachers cover only specific material in the classroom and hold the students accountable for the remainder of the course content via the textbook. Lecture style classes create a barrier between students and teachers which in my experience, tends to reflect on the resulting grade.

I hope that within the next decade, lecture style classes become a thing of the past. I am striving to create an environment in which students have more control over their education than reading a textbook and taking hastily written notes. I plan to build a classroom which is structured on the foundation of whole class discussions and debates so that students can feel safe to ask questions and so that teachers have a better understanding of what each individual student is struggling to understand.

“Nobody in this world for nothing” applies to everybody everywhere, but to me it especially applies in the classroom. Educators leave a lasting mark on each one of their students, even if they don’t realize it. I hope that within the next ten years teaching styles will evolve past lecture classes. I hope the separation between students and teachers is a bit less intense and more importantly I hope that students have a stronger influence on their education. So that nobody has to face the red notes in the margin of their tests.