What Frau Morath Taught in Addition to IB German by Kreszentia

What Frau Morath Taught in Addition to IB German by Kreszentia - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

In addition to teaching me the words, pronunciations, way of thinking and cultural context of an entirely new language, my German teacher Michelle Morath taught me the importance of taking time to find oneself. Modern American society values hard work and stability more than anything else; we glorify people that stretch themselves to their limits, who survive on stimulants and never stop moving. As a result of this constant activity, people fall into routine, void of personal reflection. If a word is repeated enough times without context, it loses meaning. If we wake up and complete the same action too many times, it too loses meaning, and we forget why we started. It is important to take time off, to decide what we want to do, to pick our goals, to decide who we are, and realize what we really want to do with our lives before these repeated days lose meaning. Frau Morath is a highly dedicated and passionate teacher, holding herself to a standard of performance that educators with twice her years of experience rarely achieve. She taught us to put all of our ability into our work if we want results, hers being the only foreign language class in our school with a 100% IB exam pass rate.
Frau taught us how to be successful outside of the traditional gauges of prestige or material riches, she showed us daily how to apply ourselves, how to make our goals concrete and attainable. Through her strict lesson plans and detailed class time schedules, she showed us how to discipline ourselves, to break daunting long-term tasks into immediate activities. By taking our next year off of teaching to reflect and decide what she really wants to do with the rest of her life, she showed us that long-term goals don't always have to be concrete and we can embrace our uncertainty in hopes of finding fulfillment.