Educational Lesson by Desire'

Educational Lesson by Desire' - October 2019 Scholarship Essay

My most inspirational teacher out of the many was my Physical Education teacher from the seventh grade through the eighth, and a distant friend throughout high school. Mr. Baker was a simple man, he meant what he said when he said it and valued respect. I admire that about him, P.E. was my all time favorite class aside from science, and mostly due to him. Mr. Baker didn’t just teach us academic courses, he taught us about life, and shared his own with us. He didn’t just relate the material to some cliché about “how life was hard” and “apply these skills to your life and you too will come over those obstacles”, he got to know us for the people we were and not the seventh or eighth graders we happened to be.

Being the slight nerd and type of person that finds it more interesting to talk to people who have experienced a whole lot more life than some classmate my age, I would typically pick his brain with any life questions I had, about how in the heck to decide my future in high school and beyond, physical education and how to go about possibly entering that field myself. Of course he coached us in the class, it was part of his job. I distinctly remember being in the middle of the abdominal pacer test. Which is an endurance test, like tests how they measure your academic growth overtime, this type of test was the same but for physical endurance. I was Just coming upon the most amount the test would allow you to do and he was encouraging us to keep good form for the last few and to finish out. I had gotten up after a rest and the conversation that was held was me asking if being able to do eighty crunches was the definition of being “fit”, and he had taken a moment and said, “if you don’t have abs… you’re not fit”. I took that statement and the other lessons I have learned from him with a large grain of salt, but I took that statement with me all the way up to now.

I apply that to my everyday life, and revisit that ideal each day. I took that statement and definitely altered my personal definition but kept the same ideal. “If you don’t complete and maintain something to the fullest… what is the purpose of even dabbling with it?” that's how I cook the food I eat, finish my homework assignments, write poetry, make life decisions, and that is just how I go through life itself. Mr. Baker taught me many things that I will be grateful for, but that is one thing I won’t forget or fail to use every day.