An Ensconced Douse of Wisdom by Giselle

An Ensconced Douse of Wisdom by Giselle - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

My teacher did not shuffle into the classroom in clicking heels and a matching pearl necklace. She did not boast about her major in a science I can’t pronounce, nor did she divulge stories about university all-nighters and how she would sell her notes to underclassmen.
Instead, my teacher spoke simple, at times hiccuped, English with a few untranslatable Spanish words sprinkled in. She read me book after book before I exited the womb. As I tottered through childhood and adolescence, she exuded wisdom for me to cling to and she recited to me every piece of knowledge she could. Where I felt doubt, she forced me to dream and see failure as another opportunity. Where I saw insurmountable circumstances, my teacher found the sole ounce of strength in me and showed me how to use it.
Sometimes, if I begged ardently enough, she would tell me a story that became a sporadically playing soundtrack throughout my life. It starred a young, eccentric woman who aspired to be a teacher. Who sat through countless computer classes in Mexico yet spent hours walking through snow-coated streets to reach an underpaid job. A woman who harbored dreams that crawled higher than skyscrapers and spread vaster than Lake Michigan.
Years later, this same woman, albeit not as young, labored her way past minimum wage jobs and a ragged apartment, into a nice home and a respectable position. Still, however, she desired to be a teacher.
I should have told her she was a teacher. Although she couldn’t unveil complex equations for me, she taught me to grasp enough confidence to pursue a math two years above my grade level. My teacher could not depict an anaphora or tell me who Jules Verne was. Notwithstanding, she urged me to write the application that landed me in National Honor Society. Despite the fact that my teach could not explain a cadenza, she enrolled me in classes that helped me play three instruments fluently. She will forever hold the position of the greatest teacher, with or without a pompous degree and equally sophisticated diction.
Finally, the soundtrack changed. The story shifted. Whispered wishes were whirled to life. My mentor of one became what most would consider a “real” teacher of many. Her twenty year old dream at last morphed into a grand reality, a renewed purpose. I watched as she stumbled through her first lesson, just as she stumbled through hazardously icy hardships in younger years. I glimpsed the first wide grin she displayed after she collided with the challenge of teaching and won. Suddenly, energetic preschoolers were laughing at her jests and leaning forward when she taught a lesson with particular suspense. It wasn’t just me soaking in her wisdom and revering it anymore. A bounty of kids and parents at last began to see what I had seen all along.
And now, as I face various challenges, a soundtrack of courage plays through my head. A record of unwavering perseverance crescendos in my mind. This tune played when I somehow, against a plethora of odds, won the fifth grade spelling bee seven years ago. It played last year when I ventured through my first year of calculus and emerged with an affinity for math. This soundtrack reverberated against my heart when I encountered my first leadership position and overcame the nervousness that accompanied it.
But the song also played through my failures, because success does not consist of golden trophies and a job well done. Success is persisting through the messy, insurmountable parts of life, disregarding all fears and weaknesses with an optimistic spirit.
During my life, I have learned Avogadro’s number, music theory, literary criticism, Rolle’s theorem, lead-writing, and all about the Romanovs. Still, the most vital lesson I’ve learned remains perseverance through the direst of circumstances, through the unlikeliest of teachers: my mother. The one whose lesson taught me to thrive both within and outside of academia.