Veteran Teachers by Katherine

Veteran Teachers by Katherine - July 2014 Scholarship Essay

A five feet tall, early seventies, scrawny, beardless man walks into the classroom. He teaches US History and US Civics and Economics. There are fifty or so students seated in the auditorium where his class is. Just looking at him you would not guess that he was a Marine Recon Officer from Vietnam. You also would not guess that he was the adult adviser for a group of fifteen girls at a charter school in North Carolina experimenting with the idea that high school students can earn their associate’s degree and high school diploma. `This man made my high school experience wonderful because I was in that group of girls that he advised for four years. During the first two years I knew him, he encouraged us in our academics as well as making sure that we were doing well personally. The last two years, in addition to being my adviser, he was also my teacher.

As a teacher, Mr. Fitz was one of the hardest I have ever had. In the yearbook my senior year he was voted the teacher with the toughest tests by the students. Yet, even though his tests were hard, he helped you to learn the material and then went one step forward in helping you apply some of your knowledge to the real world. During the section about current politics in US Civics and Economics, Mr. Fitz had all of his students go out and interview five Democrats and five Republicans to see how well aligned their personal beliefs were with their party’s platforms. He then had us analyze the party platforms to see where the differences were between the current running platforms for the Democrats and the Republicans (shockingly there were not too many differences, and both sides seemed to have some confusion about what exactly they stood for).

Thanks to Mr. Fitz, I still can talk intelligibly about our government and how it works, as well as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, even though I haven’t touched that material in four years. Mr. Fitz’s passion for the subjects he taught came out as he taught, and he made us passionate about them too. He taught us to think critically and to look at both sides of the argument before making our decision (I had not known that the Civil War was fought over state’s rights just as much as slavery until I had Mr. Fitz’s US History class).

These are a few of the reasons that Mr. Fitz affected my education positively and to go into all the details would take much longer than 900 words. Yet, it was not only I that he affected, but my entire class. As a class we voted to have him as the speaker at our graduation because we respected and admired him that much. In his brusque, no nonsense manner, Mr. Fitz managed to affect the lives of at least 86 students who learned so much from him as he pushed us on to learn more, experience more, and think more.