Keri Yourself by Elida

Keri Yourself by Elida - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

I’ve had the privilege of learning from phenomenal teachers every year of my academic experience since Pre-Kindergarten. My first grade teacher asked me to take over during a lesson about sentences; I discovered then that students don’t only digest information but pass it on to peers (and that “cereal” is not spelled with an “s”). As a gifted-and-talented student in fourth grade, my teacher separated me from my peers, where I had access to a computer to learn at my own, faster pace; in that case, I realized that students master skills at different rates (also, not to be friends with boys who throw clay in your hair). In seventh grade, my advisory teacher taught herself the famous Napoleon Dynamite dance and our class used it in a school contest; that week, I learned how to employ teamwork in a competition (and to have specific rules established ahead of time so the other teams can’t have your team disqualified for ridiculous reasons, like matching shirts). However, my junior and senior years of high school were a bit different; Ms. G, my Independent Study Mentorship (ISM) instructor, taught me to persist in spite of failure and did so by scarcely standing in front of the classroom.
After two weeks of puzzles given by substitute teachers to keep the class busy, Ms. G had finally been assigned as our official instructor. The first day of her arrival consisted of expectations and assignments, following the announcement of our first task to be completed at the end of that week. Friday comes and half the students that had started the school year with us dropped the class (as Ms. G anticipated). I am first to present my speech. The set time of five minutes flies by faster than expected, and I can’t remember a single word I said. She sits behind her desk and begins going over her notes, “So you did well on time but I could tell that you improvised at the end. You spoke quickly, probably because you were nervous but that’s okay. You did say ‘um’ 16 times. We can work on that. You tend to go off and don’t bring us back so you need to watch that. Other than that, you had really good eye contact, but try to focus on one person and move on to the next person and so on.” My face burned with humiliation. At the time, I knew that her critiques were meant to make me a better speaker but I couldn’t understand why most of her feedback had felt so detrimental. That is until senior year came.
With much growth as a second year ISM student, my assignments had improved in detail and quality. However, being a senior and ready to graduate, I struggled with keeping up in my classes, including ISM, and Ms.G noticed that in the entire class. One week, she spoke to us before releasing the class to work on their final projects: “Jacky, I’m missing five assignments from you. Ernesto, I’m missing seven. Ali, I’m waiting for a journal. Alyn, you’re missing a journal as well. Elida, I’m waiting on two assignments…” She went down her list of nine students and paused. “There are several of you missing assignments, some of you who have shown me no progress in your final product. I will not baby you until graduation. I set deadlines and you all either use your time in the class or you waste it. In your next journals, I expect more details on your products. If you are behind, you will tell me, ‘I am behind because I don’t work in class’ or ‘I will not have my product finish because’ and whatever excuse you have. Many of you will possibly fail this semester. Own up to it.” Silence. “You can go.” We hesitated to leave but went on anyway.
Thirteen “last day of school” junctures and I can’t call to mind a single one, but, while I hardly remember the fourteenth, I still recall Ms. G’s last words to me: “Kick butt out there.” I had expected her final statements to consist of how I could have done better the past two years. Yet, when I reflected on every lengthy talk she gave about the current news or the prolonged spiels about how our actions reflected our futures, I recognized what she had been teaching us all this time. In her criticism was a desire to make us better, as we privately hoped to be. In her talk was knowledge that would make us aware of the world around us, so that our future selves were impactful. In her spiel was hope that we would embrace our failures in order to learn and grow from them rather than settling for our high school graduation to be our ultimate success. She spoke to us like adults; she told us what the world outside of high school would expect us to already know. I’ve walked with a new backbone since that last moment in her classroom, and I’ve gotten my butt kicked more than I have kicked any. Still, I stand up, with cuts and bruises to remind me of my falls, and continue to fight for success with this lesson I was privileged to learn early on.