Life is an Endless Lesson by Dina

Life is an Endless Lesson by Dina - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

Eighth grade told us to say goodbye to the one-on-one relationships with teachers we had become attached to over the three years of junior high. However entering upon my freshman year of high school I realized everyone had got it all wrong. Not only did I begin making new friends but discovered lasting mentors that would come to help me in my later years.
Going into my senior year I begin to reminisce about my many classroom experiences. From my Shakespeare-crazed freshman English teacher who found her husband in the man she almost ran over to my seemingly-anti-social junior year, history teacher who had the privilege of seeing me in tears one day after school, there’s not one teacher who I can say I won’t miss. So to say the least, there isn’t just one teacher who has taught me a valuable lesson.
I have learned, somewhat, their designated subject but my take away definitely isn’t classroom related, maybe at all. How you ask does a teacher teach you something so treasured yet has no classroom aspect? Well, the answer is simple, time. The time they spent away from their pets and human friends to talk, to teach, to encourage and more than anything, to listen. Most educators spend a majority of their day silencing children, for a good reason nonetheless, however, the two-thirty bell signals the end of their tyranny, until the next morning that is. There, in the peculiar hours of after school, between three and nine, is where the real learning happens. The lives of our teachers slowly begin to unravel beneath our feet. Mistakes, Regrets, Fears all wrapped up into one endless lesson that we interpret into our own lives. We often forget teachers have lives too, other than their buttoned-up professional lives, they hide this reckless, tattooed version of themselves. And to that, I am forever indebted to.
I’ve learned test scores aren’t everything, even if I'll deny it in my own household. I’ve learned that some people aren’t cut out to learn from books. But mainly I’ve learned there is no end to learning. Being 18 or 19 and thinking you’re on the top of the world, because you’re graduating, doesn’t stop life from happening. New things have always fallen into our laps and onto the floor, constantly, until we learn how to juggle them all. My teachers have taught me I’m not crazy, I’m human. There is no such thing as a normal person, everyone makes mistakes and a failing grade isn’t fatal because mistakes teach us how to grow.
My teachers have unveiled the world’s true colors through their advice and wisdom that they gathered over the years. And the message that stuck was not paying the bills on time but that they know even less than what we think we know now. That there will not be a moment in our lives where our knowledge won’t fall short. And somehow, even at rock bottom’s end, with the right people, hope will light the way. Whether my teachers just read a scripted series that is rotated every four years or just pretended to care, their acting has surely fooled me. They led me to believe in myself when I didn’t care if anyone else did. They told me things would be okay when we both knew they wouldn’t be. Come what may, I’ll be strong enough to get through it. Because I won’t make mistakes, I’ll learn, and grow and try to juggle.