Being Taught a Lesson by Nicholas

Being Taught a Lesson by Nicholas - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

Teachers are great at teaching students concepts behind certain subjects in curriculums. Teachers can help students become more educated in subjects. However, teachers do more than just teach you how to play with numbers and analyze a book. Teachers are also important for providing you with guidance in life. They can teach you very important life lessons. Sometimes you’re taught things without even knowing, but it has to be read between the lines. Teachers are integral to learning and really try to help students.
In my life teachers have taught me a lot. The most important lesson I’ve learned from a teacher is the idea of confidence and believing I can do things. One thing I’ve lacked throughout my life was confidence and believing in myself. I always went the extra mile to do things, because I believed I didn’t do good enough on assignments or anything and I always wanted to do more and more to make sure I was absolutely certain and right. I would study for an extra hour, or add extra length to an assignment, or do as much as I could on work. That stressed me out and barely left me free time and disrupted my sleep drastically.
Finally, in my freshman year, I got this math teacher for Honors Algebra II. The guy seemed like an absolute jerk and out to ruin kids’ lives. He would see all the work I did on my homework (way more than the other kids) and he would see how much I studied for things. So, one day he had enough. He told me to have more confidence in myself and stop working so hard when I didn’t need to. He told me not to study so much and keep memorizing things. He said I would eventually ruin myself and my health if I kept staying up so late, stressing myself so much, and having all this anxiety on me. What really taught me and stuck to me was how he said that he was once in my shoes. He described how he was like me where he studied hard all the time and memorized things to try to achieve perfection, but then one day he got so sick from it that he kept throwing up. My teacher was telling me of a real-life experience he had where he had a similar case to me and it ended up hurting him.
My teacher’s words really taught me a lesson that I shouldn’t be such a perfectionist and so over-achieving, for it will hurt in the long run. I learned that I shouldn’t be so obsessed with my work and try to back off a little, for it would affect my health. That further taught me to have more confidence in myself. I learned how I need to trust myself and my gut that I’ve studied enough or that I’ve done enough so that I can get that extra hour or two of sleep that I so desperately needed to bring good health. My teacher taught me how to regain my health and life back, which is definitely the most important lesson I’ve learned from a teacher. I was able to become more confident in myself, which confidence is a key trait in life that you need to make it through life, which that teacher also taught me.
The lesson my teacher taught me has had the greatest effect on me. Now I hold my head higher and believe in myself more when I do my work. I have faith that I studied enough or put enough work into an assignment. I also know now not to mess with my health, no matter what the cost. Thus now I try to do the best I can without working to an excessive level. With the big effect the lesson brought, it was thus the most important lesson I’ve learned from a teacher. In conclusion, through it all learning to have confidence in myself and to believe in myself was the most important lesson I’ve learned from a teacher.