Why Not Wisdom Lessons? by Karen

Why Not Wisdom Lessons? by Karen - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

Learning and teaching are processes that require patience, determination, and passion. Those who have dedicated their lives to teach must have these three character traits to go beyond the four walls of a classroom. The biggest challenge for a teacher is not teach knowledge but to teach wisdom. As a student, I can say that a teacher whose goal is to teach flat is not a teacher with passion, is a teacher with knowledge.
As an immigrant who came to the United States in 2011 without speaking any English, my necessities forced me to have a teacher with wisdom’s goals because I did not only had to gain the knowledge but the motivation to be a successful student inside and outside of a classroom. What I have gone through, had taught me that the degree of a person does not measure the impact it is going to have in someone else’s life. My ESOL 2 teacher did not have a doctorate in knowledge but for me she had a doctorate in wisdom because by sharing a personal story she touched my heart and taught me that limitations did not exist unless I allowed them to exist. She shared her story, the story of an immigrant who came to this country in search of the American dream; she was not ashamed to tell her students about her struggles and suffering.
She did not only planted a sense of motivation but a sense of admiration; It takes courage, transparency, confidence, and passion for a teacher to stand in front of students who only give rejection and not acceptance and say this is who really I am. She may have not had the same impact she had in my life in every single one of her students but at least she planted on them the good seed. She taught all of us that a teacher can go beyond knowledge lessons, she taught us how to trust a mentor, how to go the extra mile, how to fight with the heart and how to share the story that makes unique and who we are.