The Most Important Lesson by Sarah

The Most Important Lesson by Sarah - July 2016 Scholarship Essay

School has always been a place of great learning for me, of course in academics, but equally in life lessons. It was almost unavoidable to learn algebra in high school, but it was the teacher I choose to listen to and learn from that taught me the most.
My teacher of three years, Mrs. Tasha Shelton, was a source of inspiration to me since my first day in her class my freshman year. It was an audio/video production course, a class leading up to being in the school’s highly successful broadcast team, which I would later become co-producer and eventually producer of. I remember our assignments beginning quickly after the semester began and her avoiding any trivial "ice breaker" games. She brought us each a camera kit out of the supply closet and we were each assigned a computer to create our videos on using various editing programs. I remember the rush of nervousness that flooded over me when her explanation of the first project ended moments after it began. Surely she would give us more direction, more detail, more guidance. I found very quickly that she had given us all of the information that she was going to. For the first time in my schooling career I was given a shovel, and no directions on where to dig or how to do it. Until then, I had been told how to achieve my goals, why I needed to achieve them, and given any knowledge that seemed necessary to do so. Now, my teacher had created a class where I had to learn for myself. I had to test out shots with the camera, knowing few of the functions beyond the bright red record button, and edit complete videos on software that resembled the control panel of a spaceship. I found myself getting frustrated and feeling defeated, how could I be successful if I had no one showing me how? Little did I know that was her point exactly, it was going to be me, myself, and I or no one at all. I spend many class periods typing questions into Google about the editing software and countless days figuring out where I would get the information to be able to simply submit my work for grading. At the time, it all seemed like a waste of my freshman year. I had a teacher who had essentially set me loose and expected me to produce great work. I would realize by the end of the year that the hard work she was giving me then would lessen the stress of my later high school years and prepare me in a way few students are ever prepared for attending college. I was taught not only the lesson of self motivation, as there were few punishments for not completing all assignments, but also the lesson of learning for myself. I learned that in life there will be no teacher with a spoon feeding you the directions to building your newly bought dining room table, no peer paying your rent alongside you or holding your hand as you race from class to class on opposite sides of campus. These things all require the want to succeed for yourself and the hard work of finding out how to do so.
My next two years in high school were in a way, simple. I listened to my teacher's lectures, and then I went home and filled in the gaps, reading articles online, viewing other teacher’s materials, and simply practicing everything from algebra problems to my writing skills cooped up in my bedroom for hours each afternoon. Meanwhile, my friends walked laps around the mall and had conversations behind the screens of their smart phones about how our teacher hadn't given example problems and therefore they were refusing to even attempt their homework sheets. My sophomore year, my assigned chemistry teacher was less than helpful, giving open ended, complicated assignments with little to no instruction. I would watch a handful of my peers pass chemistry with a C minus that year, and with little justification. With the lesson my audio/video teacher had taught me the previous year, I would go on to pass my chemistry class, to earn perfect scores on lab write ups, and to be able to explain various chemistry topics to my peers with ease. I took what little my teacher had given me and filled in the holes with a motivation to succeed and a system of self learning. I had no way of affording a privet tutor and failing was not an option to me, so I learned chemistry. Today, I think back on this lesson as the most important one not only because I can balance a chemical equation and remember how reactive an assortment of elements are, but because I can be confident that no matter what professor I get in college, I can and will be successful. At the end of the day I now know that my intrinsic motivation will be what sets me apart from others, it will be what allows me to be accepted into college, to earn scholarships, to maintain a high GPA in college, and to be hired into a great career. There are many great lessons to be learned from the teachers of today, but without this very important one, no others will have the chance to begin.