How to Learn by Joe

How to Learn by Joe - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

It was the first period of the first day of my senior year of high school, and I was filled with the impatient excitement of one who is ready to jog through the last 180 days of childhood and dive headfirst into the carefree and curfew-less Nirvana I thought of as adulthood. I had secured, through equal usage of bribery and brute force, the coveted seat in the back of class, closest to the door, and therefore had an excellent view of my AP Government teacher as he entered the room, a full three minutes late. As a college sophomore for whom the rigidity and structure of class periods, separated by the sounding of factory-like steam whistles is a thing of the distant past, the late arrival of a professor is nothing more than a reprieve; however to a high school student who is eagerly awaiting each period bell as a signal of being fifty minutes closer to the unencumbered pursuit of freedom, liberty, and happiness, this was very unusual, especially for the first day of class. My teacher, who I will refer to as Mr. W, walked in, glared around the class once, and strode to his desk at the opposite side of the room from me. He sat down, chugged the contents of a coffee mug the size of a paint can, sighed and after sitting for a few more seconds as if to gather his strength, stood up to address the room.
"Hows it goin, folks, welcome to AP Gov. This year we will be learning all about how the government "works", and how it makes our lives "better"."

When saying the words "works" and "better" he did air quotes, the theatricality of which would've put Billy Chrystal to shame. He covered the required mandatory explanation of the syllabus sheet, which would’ve have fit on a business card, in about eight minutes. He then launched into a full lesson, with each reference to the government and its ability to, well, do things, loaded with sarcasm and scorn. Being an AP government class, these references were fairly frequent. I went off to my next class with the impression that he must have gotten pulled over on the way to school that day, or have gotten food poisoning the night before, and must have just had a bad morning. I was wrong however, and over the course of that year, I and my classmates realized that Mr. W wasn’t simply not much of a morning person, but was in fact a staunch libertarian. Now why a libertarian decided to take a government job teaching high school students about how much their government benefits them, I may never, know, but for those of you who have never had the experience of being a taught about a subject by a person who wholly despises the subject, I would highly recommend.
That year I learned more from Mr. W’s class than any other. Because he was clearly biased, and was very up front about admitting that fact, everything he presented me with I had to wrestle with and come to my own conclusions about. This he very much encouraged and would engage me in debates that would last until the bell rang and, in some cases, beyond. On one occasion, a particularly intense argument over the role of government in healthcare was cut short by the bell. Mr. W motioned me over to his desk and said:
“Well Robbins, I don’t think that I’ll change your mind very much, but if you want to give me another shot at it I can write you a lunch detention pass so you can come back here during lunch”
I still consider myself to be fairly liberal, and definitely think the government makes my life better, however, what I took away from Mr. W’s class is the value of learning about things from a position of doubt. By doubting what my teacher said, but also being taught by Mr. W to doubt the subject matter he was giving me, I learned infinitely more about the subject as a whole, and really absorbed what I was learning about. A lot of subject matter, in high school and college as well, is easy to hold on to until exam day rolls around, spew out, and then forget, but subject matter that you doubt, and then are forced to engage with in your mind, really becomes a part of who you are, and shapes how you think. I have learned a lot from teachers over the course of my fourteen years in school, but what I received from Mr. W has changed HOW I learn, and for that I will be forever grateful.