Where Flowers Bloom by Amy

Where Flowers Bloom by Amy - July 2020 Scholarship Essay

The perception of a dream classroom can vary greatly depending on age. To a child in kindergarten, a dream classroom is one filled with play, where they might get the greatest amount of recess for the least amount of study. To a teenager, a dream classroom is one where students are paired with friends and their teacher is regularly available to provide additional help. To a teacher, a dream classroom is likely one where all students will listen and turn in their homework on time. Regardless of what the dream classroom looks like, they all have two things in common: a desire for growth, and ample opportunity for that growth to happen.

To me, classrooms are like gardens. Its teachers are gardeners who tend to the small buds hiding in newly thawed soil, and when the garden is abloom, its beauty is the knowledge that students have retained and will use benevolently. However, a well-tended and flourishing garden needs a devoted gardener, just as teachers must have enough time and energy to thoroughly address every student’s academic needs and manage to hold students’ attention and help them learn through interactive teaching. In my dream classroom, the teacher is attentive to all students and students become equally attentive to the teacher in return. With enough dedication, both the teacher and the students have only good things to gain.

What is also important is the quality of the garden itself, such as the amount of water, sunlight, space, and nutrients—even with the greatest amount of effort, the gardener can only do so much. If a good gardener does not have good resources, the chances of procuring a lovely garden are automatically diminished. Similarly, a school must provide sufficient amounts of high-quality resources for its classrooms—resources that are beyond just a teacher. In my dream classroom, required materials such as pencils, highlighters, and calculators are found in plenty, and books are reasonably new and in high numbers so as to provide each student with their own copy. All members of the classroom have access to technology that facilitates their duty, whether that be teaching or learning. It may seem ridiculous to request the fulfillment of such basic needs, but that sense of disbelief will only hold true until one steps inside my Chemistry classroom and finds the few available books tattered and worn (and with a third of the pages missing), or into the Spanish classroom and realize that the few markers left in the teacher’s bucket have all dried up. If such basic needs cannot be fulfilled, then I’d say there cannot be a significant advancement to be found. However, to me, perhaps the most important resource are opportunities where students apply their learned knowledge to real life, whether that be with increased numbers of field trips, in-school activities, school-sponsored local ventures, or through other means, for they make education more personal. Instead of only reading words on a page, taking notes on a laptop, or doing the sporadic lab, the classroom begins to fully utilize all five senses and light up the brain, and the student becomes even more actively engaged in their learning.

As a consequence of the teacher’s efforts, classroom discussions become more frequent and passionate, students become more alert to and willing to communicate their needs, and the room to excel expands considerably. I’ve found that one’s surroundings are often another great motivator for personal growth, and if my classmates’ eyes begin to shine with understanding and enthusiasm, mine will too, and if my classmates become more vocal, I will also use my voice more. Classroom tools and high-quality textbooks will further etch knowledge into the mind, and access to up-to-date technology allows connection to students from around the globe and is the key to a virtually infinite library of information in which we may feast upon. The application of the school curriculum to real life is a wonderful way to prepare students for adulthood and may help to humanize and individualize education, which then places even more utility on obtained knowledge. This stimulation of learning will only increase as time goes on, and like a garden where spring flowers bloom to showcase their refreshing beauty for the world to see, the dream classroom spreads innovation and progression not just to its nurtured students, but to society as well.