Magnolias and Misunderstanding by Emily

Magnolias and Misunderstanding by Emily - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

Teachers are often categorized by the subjects and grades which they are paid to instruct. We look back on our years in school and remember a sixth grade science teacher or a ninth grade English teacher. However, the lessons which we recall are rarely anything so menial as science or English. A truly great teacher does so much more than teach lessons and grade papers. Great teachers do everything in their power to ensure that each and every student not only understands the academic materials required but also strives to be their best outside the classroom. My teacher, Mrs. Goff, taught me the importance of believing in everyone, regardless of where they have been, what they have done, or what they appear to be.
I entered into the Mississippi Writers course my sophomore year with high expectations. I thought I was about to embark on a journey with twenty-five other bright-eyed pupils through the literature and culture of our great magnolia state. Such was not the case. There were only ten or twelve of us, barely enough to have a class in the first place, and about eight of them were asleep by the end of our first ninety-minute session.
I was enchanted by the class but completely disgusted by my classmates. They were only taking the class to gain the extra credit they needed to graduate, not to actually learn anything. Almost all of them were senior boys, and almost all of them spent their time talking about their latest drunken exploits or their plans for next weekend, which were morally questionable at best. I wondered where in the world their parents were and why the teacher rarely put a stop to their chatter. Aside from one other student, an intelligent young man who spent his free time doing his math homework, I felt like I was in a foreign country. I was blind to the reality of the classroom.
Every once in a while, Mrs. Goff would call up one or two of the students to her desk. I assumed it was about their grades or their sleeping habits. However, one day I was bored enough to listen. He had fallen asleep because he had not slept at all the night before. It was not because he had been out performing some mischievous deed but because he lived in an abusive home. He was not safe. His parents did not really care what happened to him at all, so neither did he. At that moment, it was as though I had been given a new pair of eyes, as though Jesus himself had loaned his vision to me. I looked around and saw those eyes - some closed, some bloodshot, some absolutely empty from lack of affection. I felt guilty for having taken my education so for granted. I yearned for knowledge and culture and sophistication; they, though too proud to admit it, yearned merely for love.
I listened to the rest of the conversation, though perhaps I should not have, and I was amazed by the patience and kindness which Mrs. Goff extended to him. She was an excellent teacher – I learned more in two weeks of Mississippi Writers than I had in an entire semester of Mississippi History the year prior. However, her care for her students did not end at the 3:06 bell nor did it take a lunch break. It made no difference to Mrs. Goff whether or not you were even her pupil. She loved each and every student as her own. She gave guidance to a girl who was seventeen, pregnant, and unsure where to turn. She helped me search for scholarships although I was far from my senior year. It did not matter if you were a troubled youth or just a random student, she was always the same and always uplifting.
As I look back upon that semester, I realize just how self-centered I had been. I had wondered why some students were so lazy or why anyone would choose to throw their life away making such poor decisions at such a young age. I had never taken into account any other circumstances; I had assumed that, having grown up in the same small town, their lives were similar to mine. After that class, I gained so much more compassion in addition to that culture, knowledge, and sophistication I had initially craved. Mrs. Goff taught me an abundance of lessons that semester, though perhaps not all of them were exactly what I had planned to learn. I know now that Mississippi has 82 counties, that Tennessee Williams was gay, and that all people deserve to be treated as exceptional people, because, in one way or another, we are.