Mr. Carmel by Chloe

Mr. Carmel by Chloe - July 2014 Scholarship Essay

“Hi, I’m Mr. Carmel, and I’m black,” is not a typical greeting I would expect from a teacher when meeting for the first time. I was a high school senior walking into African-American Studies, a combination of English (with a focus mainly on African American authors and/or stories of African American people), and African American History. As a high school senior, I was ready to breeze right through senior year hoping to put in as little effort as possible as I was so focused on the social aspects of my final year at Morristown High School.

I was soon to learn that Mr. Carmel’s history portion of African American Studies was unlike any other class that I had ever taken. Mr. Carmel’s class was more of a sociology class than a history, which really appealed to me. The class was centered around class discussions that I was always eager to participate in. Mr. Carmel considered everyone’s opinions and would expand on them even if he didn’t agree with them and was one of the funniest people I had ever met. Feeling as comfortable as I did in his class was something that I was not used to with most of the other teachers that I’ve had.

Mr. Carmel is what other teachers should aspire to be. He values his students trust and respect more than any other teacher that I’ve had and would do anything to see his students succeed. Mr. Carmel is the reason that I too want to be an educator and have as much impact on my students in the next generation that Mr. Carmel did on me.