A New Dream by Kaelyn

A New Dream by Kaelyn - October 2016 Scholarship Essay

As I sat in my sixth grade English class reading a boring book, I realized I would love nothing more than to be an English teacher; I wanted to make English an enjoyable subject, much like how it was in elementary school. I longed for all students to look forward to English class and not just those who like reading or writing.

When I was in elementary school, I loved reading and writing as it came easy for me, but when I walked through the doors of my sixth grade English class, the atmosphere changed entirely. I no longer received stickers for reading a certain number of books or received my papers back with smiley faces drawn on them. The gears had shifted, as expected, but the fun was sucked out of the class. I was forced to read books that didn’t interest me instead of books I had on my “Books To Read” list. Furthermore, the papers we wrote needed to follow strict guidelines with a specific number of adjectives, paragraphs, and sentences within the paragraphs. Because of these new circumstances, I began to put off reading instead of sneakily staying up late to get to the next chapter. Similarly, I became stressed about my paper being “good enough” for the high standards set in place instead of letting my writing flow and sound like me. I wished I could go back to the glory days of my elementary school English classes, but since that couldn’t happen, I decided that maybe one day I would be an English teacher.

My desire to be an English teacher came from the root of losing my love for English. I knew what went wrong for me and for many of my friends and other students. It was a problem that occurs too frequently in any activity- the child loves a subject or sport and is pushed so hard that he or she loses the passion and begins to focus on reaching the increasingly high bar. This is where the love transforms into hate.

There is a simple solution to this all too frequent problem- push students so they get better but not to a point where they struggle to succeed and lose confidence in themselves. Middle schoolers go through a time where their confidence isn’t at its highest point, so it’s even more important that they receive the assurance that they are doing well and are on the right track. It is, however, difficult to find the balance between pushing them to be their best and not pushing them too much or too little; thus, it’s important for the teacher to get to know the students’ likes and dislikes and their academic abilities, along with checking in with each of their students to make sure they are doing well. It’s important for teachers to know their students’ likes and dislikes because the students who live for a good mystery novel will not enjoy reading a historical book on The Civil War, but the history guru in the class would enjoy reading it. Additionally, knowing their students’ academic abilities helps teachers to gauge how well their students are doing. Instead of grading Bobby’s paper compared to Julia’s paper, the teacher would better help Bobby by grading his paper compared to the last paper. Finally, all students want to feel like their teacher cares about them, and there’s no better way than for the teacher to take an extra couple minutes to simply ask Sarah how she is doing or what her favorite or least favorite part of the class is. I recognized these problems, and knew by fixing these key issues, English would be more enjoyable for me and for many others.

I didn’t want another student to feel the way I felt in my sixth grade English class. Instead, I was inspired to be a middle school English teacher. I knew what I enjoyed and struggled with in that class, and through communication with my peers, I realized many others had the same likes and dislikes. If it was such a frequent circumstance throughout my grade, I concluded it must be a fairly typical situation throughout other grades and schools. Furthermore, I was confused by the fact that such a common problem with simple solutions had not been fixed. With those realizations, I was even more inspired to be a middle school teacher. I knew I would have to get to know my students and their abilities and check in with them to make sure they were enjoying my class, but that all seemed simple and exciting for me, and I couldn’t wait to see the smiling faces on my future students and watch them succeed.