A Personal Connection by Kevin

A Personal Connection by Kevin - January 2015 Scholarship Essay

If I could give a teacher one piece of advice, it would be to take the time to at least attempt to get to know his or her students better. I would tell them that the type of relationship a student has with his or her teacher is very critical to how they learn. I understand that in this imperfect world in which we live, certain students just simply don’t open up to teacher or anyone else for that matter. That is where the word attempt used in my first sentence comes into play. That student that doesn’t open up to you may seem as if they just don’t care, but I assure you that they took note in your effort. One might ask to themselves, “How can you be so sure of this?” I can personally attest to this because I was that student.

For me it was never a lack of effort, care, or a negative attitude toward the class or the teacher. It was just the fact that I was always more of a conservative person. I would occasionally share emotions with my friends and family. Sharing them with a teacher? Never. At least that was the case until I met Mr. Stovall. It started as small things such as him saying to me, “I like that shirt” or “You’re left-handed? Wow that’s pretty interesting”. Reading this you may say to yourself “OK, but how does that make him a good teacher?” These small things made me realize that he actually paid some attention to me and that I wasn’t just another student filling up a chair in an over-crowded classroom. These small observations, which turned into acknowledgements, actually made me pay attention in class. Not just any class either. Algebra. I had hated math ever since middle school. Mr. Stovall would notice when me or my peers were not really focused and turn one of his observations into a witty joke in which would make us pay attention. Educating students while keeping them just amused enough to where they would focus, but not enough to where it was a distraction. Brilliant.

Whenever my peers or I would come to class in a bad mood he would always take note and give us the opportunity to talk about. I felt as if that class was a family. We all got along and all helped each other. As a whole our scores were fairly high compared to the other math classes in my school. All because of the teaching style of Mr. Stovall. I never found out until after I had completed the class that this had been Mr. Stovall’s first year teaching. Maybe his lack of experience was what led to his success as a teacher. Pretty ironic. With that being said, I say to any of my future teachers that a personal connection with students makes a great impact.