Stress is Small by Hanna

Stress is Small by Hanna - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

In high school, I took both Biology Honors and AP Biology. Both courses were taught by the same teacher; she also coached my scholar’s bowl team and the school’s science Olympiad team. She was not much by appearances; she was maybe five feet with brown hair and kind eyes. She loved all plants and animals, and she once got teary eyed when a student hit a squirrel with his car. The first word that comes to mind is precious. However, there was much more to her than met the eye. I came to find out that she had a Master’s degree in microbiology and had worked in multiple labs. She held a black belt in Taekwondo and was fiercely protective of her students. She had a dark sense of humor, but a Christian faith that could not be shaken. The more I got to know her, the more I liked her and related to her.
My senior year in her AP Biology class I was incredibly stressed. I had a graduation speech to write, AP exams to prepare for, college admissions to deal with, and a social life to attempt to have. I had gotten close with this teacher, so I voiced some of my stress to her. Later that week she showed up to class with some wooden boards. She told my class to write whatever was stressing us out on the board then lead us outside. She then spent the class period teaching us how to break a board and demolish our stress. Afterwards she talked to me about finding productive ways to channel my stress into something good. She also told me that just because I am petite like her did not mean that I was not a force to be reckoned with. She recommended some taekwondo classes and told me to call her if I ever needed to break a few more boards. That day she taught me that I could not let anything stand in my way: not my size, my stress, or anything else. She showed me that all I had to do is channel my negative energy into something productive, and it is one of the most important life lessons I learned in high school to this day.