The Backpack Rule by Montana

The Backpack Rule by Montana - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

We all carry backpacks. Some are packed full with every book and utensil they could possibly need for any task ranging from learning how to integrate the natural log of ‘x’, to surviving a week in the Amazon Jungle; while others are empty—solely there for upholding the image ascertained by society of a student attending classes. However, as with most happenings presented to us in everyday life, there is an exception to this statement. It is this exception that I would deem to be the most important and valuable lesson I have ever learned from a teacher. I like to call it the ‘Backpack Rule’. This exception consists of the minute population that report to class equipped with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the pencils in their pockets.
Most students attend school with the hopes of learning many valuable lessons that will help to properly arm themselves with the weapons they need to continue in the everyday battle sometimes referred to as life. In many ways, this is exactly what they get. Upon graduation most students find that the education they have been building on since they first stepped foot into the world of learning is exactly what they need to continue on into higher education and, eventually, a career that fuels their passion.
Passions are relationships that are created by exploring, being exposed to, or—at times—even being forced to try new things. Without teachers, most of us would never have been given the chance to properly find our passions. Teachers provide us with many different lessons throughout our lives; from arithmetic to chemistry to knowing if ‘i’ comes before ‘e’. However, it seems the most important lessons are ones that are given to us in a subconscious, almost secretive nature. We learn such lessons without even realizing that they are being imprinted into our minds and they stick with us for most of our adult lives. These ‘secret lessons’ are ones that, as with finding our passions, can only be given to us through the words and actions of a teacher.
To say that I have one specific teacher who taught me what I referred to above as the ‘Backpack Rule’, would be like saying there is only one shade of red. Like the many different shades of red, this most important lesson was imposed on me by many years of exposure to it, in many different ways, by many different teachers.
The ‘Backpack Rule’ consists of an idea of which was expressed so eloquently by F. Scott Fitzgerald in a novel called The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald wrote, “Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope”. The ‘Backpack Rule’ envelopes the same concept that Fitzgerald was trying to convey; that overall, one should do their very best to reserve judgements in every aspect of life. The reason behind this is also very passionately explained by another one of Fitzgerald’s quotes from The Great Gatsby: “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages you’ve had.” The ‘Backpack Rule’, in a way, goes hand in hand with what Fitzgerald was trying to convey: that we don’t know the demons or wars that others are battling at any given moment in time—all we can do is attempt to believe the very best in people when their behaviors do not reflect such attributes.
The ‘Backpack Rule’ is one that was imprinted on me, not solely by teachers, but also by parents, colleagues, coworkers, and friends. In a way, all of them are ‘teachers’; and they begin striving to instruct us in these important life lessons—as well as practice them themselves—from the time we are born, well into adulthood.
As a result, we all learn many important and valuable lessons throughout the course of our lives. For me, the most important lesson I have ever learned from a teacher—the ‘Backpack Rule’—is this: one should do their best to reserve judgements while assuming only the best in others’ words and actions; for at any given moment in our lives, it is sometimes those who arrive to class with only the clothes on their backs and the pencils in their pockets that carry the heaviest of backpacks.