All Jokes Aside by Meghan

All Jokes Aside by Meghan - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

The most important lesson I have learned from one of my teachers is that there is an enormous difference between comprehending and memorizing what you’re trying to learn. I have had so many outstanding teachers throughout my years of schooling who have taught me countless lessons, but this past year, my sophomore year of high school, I’ve had my eyes opened by my Honors English teacher.
To begin, this Honors English class was like no class I have ever had before. For the first time in my life, I enjoyed reading a Shakespeare play, Julius Caesar, and laughed until I cried while analyzing it. My teacher paused after each act to reassure we understood it and to make sure we kept track of what was actually taking place in the play. He summarized and explained each act in such a simple and subtle way that we all could decipher it, but also laugh at his explanation. My teacher told us the breakdown of the act in modern language that we use daily. That’s why it was hilarious because no one is ever expecting their teacher to relate to them, but it was even funnier hearing a Shakespeare play broken down to casual conservation. When we reached the end of Julius Caesar and took the test, everything was so much easier than anyone expected. You may wonder why was it a breeze, and no, it wasn’t because the test was a joke or it wasn’t complex enough. We just didn’t realize that during our discussions of the acts while we were laughing, we were also absorbing the literature. After the test, my teacher questioned us if we noticed how he didn’t teach Julius Caesar like our past teachers taught a book or a play. Everyone knew what he was talking about. Usually, teachers give you endless amounts of worksheets and vocabulary words to define. Of course our teacher gave up worksheets to make sure we got the gist of the play, but he wanted us to grasp what was important, not to recite definitions of vocabulary words that we would forget right after the test. I have been a 4.0 grade point average student my whole life, and I am currently still one. I am indeed guilty of memorizing information for tests or quizzes. It’s easy to memorize vocabulary then have the information discarded from your brain only a few moments after your test paper leaves your hand. I realized many years ago that if I wanted to stay an A+ student I had to do more than memorize the material. All classes aren’t run by the book like this honors class, so you can’t just memorize everything. You have to have creative thinking, and you have to be able to have reasoning to backup your thoughts and points. From there, I threw myself into my studies even more than I was beforehand and personally related to the lessons, so I could take in all of the knowledge.
To conclude, this year my Honors English teacher reinforced this lesson in my head with many others like how there is no limit to your own success with hard work. He told us about how even though we have, for the most part, grown up in this small town where most people do the same thing; you can do anything you want with dedication to whatever you want to pursue. I will miss this Honors English class so much, and our teacher because he is moving away. I wish him the best of luck, and I hope he inspires and teaches more of his students valuable lessons like he did for my class and I.