The most valuble lesson I've learned from a Teacher. by Justyn

The most valuble lesson I've learned from a Teacher. by Justyn - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

Teachers are tasked with the tough and valiant duty of preparing generations for the real world. May they be an Elementary School or an esteemed College Professor; they strive to give our Parents, us, our children and children the skills and knowledge to survive in the real would. Granted, school teachers can’t give you all the skills necessary to survive. Many lessons stem from personal experience, your parents teaching and your peers and environment, but teachers are the once obligated and trained to pass on knowledge and to help students learn in an effective way. And Teachers aren’t limited to their curriculum in that regard. Many students develop deeply personal connections with teachers and vice versa. Many teachers are deeply interested in not only seeing their students succeeds not only in the classroom, but in life as well their emotional and general wellbeing. I’ve seen many instants of intensely caring (platonic) student teacher relationships. Teachers talking to students about personal, domestic struggles among other things and the teachers help them through that. And it’s not just student to teacher. I can’t even begin to count how many times a teacher has drummed an interesting sometimes insightful anecdote about their past or gave a short yet poignant lecture on the challenge of adult. Sometimes tying into the lesson, sometimes attempting to inform and engage the class, sometimes their just speaking and sometimes disciplining a student.

One teacher that I think did the best job not only teaching his students the curriculum but a valuable life lesson was my 11th grade chemistry teacher Mr. Harrod. He always had an interesting story or life lesson to teach. He was a kind of reserved but fun teacher. A lot of the time he as a mixed bag of emotions. One minute he would be in a fun, happy go luck mood the next he would be heart attack serious-yet most of the time he had a playful tone in his lectures. The lesson that he wanted us to leave high school with was do more than that of what is expected of you. He wanted us to strive to think of the box and beyond the average and the standard. I think this lesson is important because it shows that you have a lot of passion and put a lot of time in effort in to your work through most of my life I’ve seen my friends mostly give what they do- be it a project for school or something they are making on their own time only go until its “good enough”. This diminishes there work and ultimately the project is not all that it can be. Though, one of my friends, Chandra, has always gone above and beyond with all of her work and everything she does looks polished and refined. For example near the end of senior year we were doing a small project worth a lot of points. It was supposed to be a short 10 (or more) slides about an ethical issue that we researched a month be for. She had a ton of slide, charts and statistics to go along with the stuff on the rubric. It was an amazing and she got a great grade on it.

I’ve also have stride to do more than the average in the past. I’m very passionate about music specifically oldies music- Stuff from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and even farther back. So when I got an assignment to create a power point detailing a part of 60’s culture- Cinema, Music, Fashion, etc. I choose music and I was so excited! Most people did a 3-7 minute little slide show on their topic with a 5 point questionnaire. I on the offhand did a 20 minute (kind of lost track of time) presentation with a small packed of questions. I felt so proud of my work. It was so fun! My teacher also was very impressed with the amount of detail I had and the amount effort and planning I put into it.
And I got a grade that reflected such.

In conclusion the notion of doing more then what is expected of you has heavily increased my work ethic and is a valuable lesson that I will happily give to my children.