Science Class At Miss Burnt Ham's by Max

Science Class At Miss Burnt Ham's by Max - November 2020 Scholarship Essay

Let's be honest, being labeled a gifted kid sucks. Some study by psychologists in the early 2000's must have influenced this, saying that labeling the top quarter or so of these kids would boost their self esteem, and lead to a steady stream of academic merit. Or at least that's how I imagine it. And the funny thing is, it almost never works. It almost always leads to never meeting the obscenely high standards that the school system and your parents have set for you and then a gradual decline in your interest for school until you end up painfully average. I would know, since I was practically the poster child, the mascot, the president of the company. The creme de la creme of the gifted children. Even my peers noticed it and then designated me through the Beach Elementary and Middle School nickname system as "Smart Max". So "gifted" in fact, that I was one day approached in my third grade class from this lady in a bob from Iowa, who said that she was going to take me into the music room and give me all these horrendously hard problems to solve. Apparently I did good enough, and I ended up packing my schoolbags to start a year ahead from my former peers at Beach Elementary and Middle School.

While the momentary fame that the grade skip got me was quite nice, I was soon met by complete ostracism from my new peers. I soon learned that the popularity system was determined by your height, and me, being four-foot one, was left at the bottom of the totem pole. I learned quickly that they wanted nothing to do with me, and the label of "Smart Max" was quickly re-branded to "Quiet Max".

That is, until seventh grade. While the last two years of my educational career had been relatively a slog, this year was already different from my others. We were introduced to this new subject called "Health", and I was already exploring the digital world with my first iPhone. As I entered my first period, the first thing we all noticed was the new teacher and the giant Helvetica letters above the white board inscribed as "Mrs. Burnham". She was instantly an anomaly among the teachers at our middle school, in her teaching and in her personality. While every other teacher at our homely school took a very strict, by the textbook approach to the class, Mrs. Burnham made it a priority to educate us head on, with a series of active experiments and in-depth research projects. In the health class she made it her motive to not just show us blurred black and white diagrams of the reproductive genitalia, but also to educate us about the dangers of drug use, effective contraceptive methods, and how to discern if you're being sexually or emotionally abused.

And it wasn't just her way of teaching that made her different. She genuinely made an effort to connect with each and every student. I remember my prepubescent seventh grade self was displeased with her assigning so much homework, and I angrily scribbled a doodle with her labeled as "Miss Burnt Hams". As she went around to check our daily works, I realized that "Oh geez, I might actually get in trouble for this." I then subsequently realized that I had scribbled this doodle straight onto my daily work, so in a last ditch attempt to conceal the potentially detention-worthy doodle, I tried to cover it up with my shoulder. As Mrs. Burnham finished her rounds at got to me, our conversation went something like this:
Ms. Burnham: "Hey Max, I see you got your daily work under there. Can I see it?"
Me: "No thanks. I don't have my daily work today."
Ms. Burnham: "What do you mean? I can see your daily work right there."
Me: "No you can't".
Ms. Burnham: *moves my shoulder*
It was then when I felt a lump rise in my throat. I slowly got up from my chair, expecting a swift hand pointing to the detention room.
But then, something really unexpected happened.
She started laughing.
I was genuinely confused. She was still laughing, and I was starting to feel embarrassed. Was this some kind of sick joke? As I started to trudge my way to the detention room, she motioned for me to come back. She later set the record straight, saying that while I shouldn't draw caricatures of teachers, as they could take offense, this was pretty funny. The name gradually spread around the class that year, and by National Bacon Day, everyone was calling her Miss Burnt Hams. She seemed to like it.

Even after her class, her impact was still there. I still know people to this day who want to become teachers and people actively pursuing science because of her. I felt more acknowledged in that class where I was seen as someone normal and not somebody "gifted". And I feel like that's what should be taught at the end of the day. Not favoring other students because of their slightly superior academic abilities with a textbook, but treating everyone's abilities as equal and then encouraging learning through active experiments and real-life information. And THAT is what I learned in science class at Miss Burnt Hams.