A Lesson in History by Anne

A Lesson in History by Anne - July 2014 Scholarship Essay

Growing up, school always seemed like just some necessary responsibility. In elementary and middle school, it was always easy for me, so I did not take it very seriously. I learned most of my history through historical fiction books, as I enjoyed reading, but not studying.

While I did not have a problem with school, I was not very passionate about it until I had history with Mrs. Huskey in eighth grade. In this class, history was made fun, which made us want to participate more and try to learn more about the topic at hand. The primary way she strove to make history interesting and relevant was through hands-on activities.

For instance, when we learned about Mayan Civilization, we made pottery and decorated it with facts about the people and culture. In addition, for each of the world wars, we played a Risk-like war game using the various advantages and disadvantages the various countries involved possessed at the time of each war. By adding the competitive edge, we were motivated to explore the advantages of our own countries, mine was France, and the disadvantages maintained by the other countries.

Since then, I have tried to tie in topics in class to personal interests or goals of mine, in order to spur myself to try harder. In addition to making the information more relative to the interests of middle schoolers, Mrs. Huskey showed passion for the education of everyone in everything she does. Although people the age of her students show disinterest in all they do, her passion was inspiring, and eventually rubbed off on the rest of us, causing us to love her class and realize there was nothing wrong with enjoying school.

Although it took me awhile to figure out my direction and passion in education, that I would like to be a nurse, reminding myself of the passion and relevance of the information, more true now than ever, is what spurs me on to try harder with every class. Even when I take classes irrelevant to my career, by figuring out which aspects of it interest me, I am able to get excited about learning and about sharing education with others, for instance by becoming a TA in the honors college, in which I led discussions for a group of freshmen. I also took them to elementary schools to inspire kids to strive for college, thus instilling the importance of education in the next generation.

If it had not been for Mrs. Huskey, I never would have believed so highly in the education system that I wanted to become involved in it any way I can. Although my primary passion is Nursing, further down the road I intend to become a teacher for Nursing students, in order to further pass along my passion that I garnered in that eight-grade classroom so long ago.