Identify and Overcome by Elizabeth

Identify and Overcome by Elizabeth - May 2021 Scholarship Essay

No child fits in one box when it comes to education. Genetics, environment, psychology, and personality all play such important roles in a child's mind and how they think, learn, and express themselves. Growing up as an only child who lived to please my parents, I did not have an overwhelming need to be assertive. Asking for help was not an option I even considered, and oftentimes, in the classroom, that became my downfall. I was a quiet student who did all my work, and my greatest academic challenge was understanding math, but even further than that having the incapability of asking for help crippled my aptitude to learn. In fifth grade I struggled in my math class. I didn't have many friends, and sat by myself when others worked in groups to work more efficiently. I stumbled upon a certain math skill that I could not understand, and instead of asking for help to better understand I took it upon myself to miraculously figure it out. After turning in my worksheets with several blank answers, my teacher felt the need to call out my lack of comprehension to the entire class. "Some students," she began, looking directly at me, "seem to have skipped out on this assignment, and therefore will stay inside each day during recess this week and work on this assignment." I sunk down in my seat and wished I could be invisible.

When lunch time ended and recess approached, I slumped over to my math teacher's classroom. Meeting me with a scowl, she handed me my assignment and I got to work. I froze with shame, embarrassment, and confusion and could not even seem to put my pencil to paper. I worked some numbers and waited until I was excused. The next four days followed that same routine. On the fifth day, Friday, my teacher approached me during that recess period and began to verbally teach me down. "How could anyone spend this much time on an assignment and have so much missing? Why can't you understand this? This is an easy concept. You must not care very much about your work." These insults jabbed my core. I meekly replied "I've been trying hard to understand. I'm sorry." She met my shameful apology with "Well, your definition and my definition of hard work must be two different things. I'm done letting you stay in here and get caught up, so your grade will reflect your effort." I ran to the bathroom and bawled quietly. I thought my mind was useless - that there was something wrong with me.

I went on to sixth grade and entered middle school. I dreaded math, but I had an empathetic and gentle teacher. She cared so much. She realized my lack of understanding, and spent special time with me each day to make sure that she did everything she could to help me understand. "Elizabeth, you are smart and capable of doing this. You just need a little bit of help getting there, so let's look at what you don't understand and spend some time going over it." Her words stuck with me for the rest of my scholastic career. I began to appreciate math, and appreciate that my mind could do hard things as long as I reached out for other resources to understand. This year I am graduating high school as a Magna Cum Laude, all honors, AP Scholar. I learned to embrace the challenge of things I could not understand right away, and felt accomplished when I worked hard to master them. I am thankful for my challenges in fifth grade math that I learned to overcome, and now, as I prepare to attend college and become an elementary school teacher, I will do for every student what my sixth grade math teacher did for me: care.