Learning Should Be Fun! by Drew

Learning Should Be Fun! by Drew - January 2015 Scholarship Essay

It's 7:45am on Monday morning.....the first day of school. There is excitement in the air as my senior year is about to officially begin! Why it seems like just yesterday that I was a lowly freshman stumbling down these very hallways trying to find my locker, and my classes. Not today. Today I am KING! Big man on campus, starting Varsity football player, and the desire of most of my sophomore sisters' girlfriends, amongst others. Life is good.....until.

8:00am and the bell rings. Mr. Jackson was standing in front of my first period Economics class. It was the first time I have had a male teacher that was not a coach. It felt kind of strange. A middle aged man with greying hair and a physique that indicated he had not seen the inside of a gym in many, many years, Mr. Jackson was well, average. He was wearing starched blue jeans, a checkered button-down shirt, black shoes, and glasses with tiny wire frames. According to my friend Paul, Mr. Jackson had been teaching Economics at our school for at least 15 years. Paul's older brother, Keith, had supposedly had Mr. Jackson's class back in 2005 when he was a senior. When Paul and I asked Keith about Mr. Jackson, all he would say is "I hope you don't get him first period....unless you are in need of an extra hour of sleep!" The saying, "the more things change, the more things stay the same" apparently fits Mr. Jackson's class to a tee! He started with a brief self introduction, a summary of the course syllabus, and a run down of the, what seemed never ending, class rules. After the first 20 minutes, I felt my eyelids starting to get heavy and the excitement I felt when I entered class was quickly fading away. Twenty minutes into my senior year and I was already counting the days until it was over.

Mr. Jackson, please step into my time machine and travel with me into the future. The year is now 2025 and It's the first day of school. I am the teacher now, getting ready to stand in front of a group of high school seniors who are excited to start, what could be, the best year of their young lives. There is upbeat, modern music playing as the students pile into my classroom. The look of surprise on their faces as they enter is priceless. Everyone is smiling and laughing as they take their seats. When I turn off the music, I start by asking the class if anyone could tell me who was the group singing the song that was just playing. Hands shoot up all over the room as many of the students recognized the band. I then tell the class that this particular group had sold 1.5 million digital downloads of this song over the last three years and earned over 3 million dollars in royalties. The class is completely engaged and eagerly awaiting to find out how this information pertains to Economics. I have them hooked! I proceed to let the class know that in my class, we are going to have fun! We are going to learn! We are going to leave this class with knowledge that will help us be successful in our future endeavors! Oh yeah, did I mention that we are going to have fun? You can see and feel the excitement in the room. The students are sitting upright in their chairs and focused on what's going to happen next. Learning is about to take place.

Mr. Jackson. I, like many students, actually want to learn. We want to be challenged to expand our thoughts and perceptions of the world. We want to gain insight into things and ideas that will help us now and in the future. But Mr. jackson, we depend on you to make the subject you chose to teach interesting and fun. For if it's not interesting and fun, then our young minds will tune you out. We will miss a great opportunity to learn from your knowledge and experiences, and in doing so, we will not be prepared to advance to the next level of our education. Quite honestly, both your time, and our time, will have been wasted.

Mr. Jackson, we are now going to travel back in time to the day before the first day of school, 2005. I hope you will reconsider your approach to teaching and strive each and every day to make learning interesting and fun for your students. I don't expect you to be perfect, but I do expect you to try. If you are successful, I, along with the other students in your classes, will have a greater chance of being successful too! Thank you for choosing to be a teacher.