Mr. Carter - Educator Extraordinaire by Talaial

Mr. Carter - Educator Extraordinaire by Talaial - July 2014 Scholarship Essay

In a society where education is playing an ever vital part of our lives, many students still dismiss the true value of an education and instead believe that the objectives of an education are to obtain a high paying job and lavishly live in an expensive house. While education may unlock these opportunities, the true value of education is its ability to help individuals to capably solve any difficult issue and teach humans to cooperatively work with others to develop remarkable ideas and inventions to expand humanity’s reservoir of knowledge. Unfortunately, I had once been one of those nearsighted students who viewed education as a one way street to a luxurious life instead of an interconnecting web where any individual could shape their paths while along the way, establish new threads of opportunities and resources for any human. Luckily, my freshman Algebra I math teacher, Mr. Carter, changed my foolish beliefs and helped me understand the significance of education through illustrating his experiences growing up in an inner city environment and dealing with students who come from underprivileged backgrounds.

At the outset of freshman year of high school, I was the stereotypical student; uninterested and dissatisfied with the eight years of education already under my belt and ready to obtain a coveted job that would surely grant me millions of dollars to spend for my shameless desires. Frankly, I did not even consider how I would succeed in such a profession without an appreciation for education nor did I value any learned information from my education. I was simply just a robot that would automatically absorb anything told to me without any critical thought.

However, these thoughts had changed when I stepped into my Algebra I class for the first time and was greeted with the rough voice of a tall man in his thirties who told me to sit down, open my books, and begin working on the problems written on the dusty blackboard.

“Great,” I groaned, “I guess I’m going to have to actually try for once.”

Several months later after completing copious amounts of math homework for countless weeks and experiencing frustration and sleep deprivation, I decided I was done with math. Of course, my stubbornness did not end there because the day after, I stomped to the front of the chipped, wooden desk of my math teacher to vent my rage at the tremendous amount of time I was spending for his class for what I felt was ‘no reason at all’.

“HEY! MR. CARTER! CAN YOU PLEASE STOP GIVING US ALL THIS WORK! I HAVE OTHER THINGS TO DO, YA KNOW!”

Unfazed, Mr. Carter replied, “You do realize there is a point to what you are learning right?”

For a second, I considered his statement but yet again I thought, “What could he be talking about? Blah, blah, blah. What point am I learning other than surviving sleepless days full of anxiety and stress?”

“You don’t go to school to fool around and sit idly by waiting for a plate of knowledge to be fed to you. No, you need to you use this education, especially from my math class, to become cognizant of the issues and unrealized goals of our world and develop methods to eliminate those issues and solve any goal. If not, you will become another thoughtless follower of the crowd that seeks nothing other than self-gratification.”

Suddenly, an overwhelming guilt cast over me. I had never once considered education as a tool for meaningful change rather than selfish attainment of material goods and wealth. With this newfound appreciation for education, I inquired into what influenced Mr. Carter’s beliefs towards learning and education.

At heart, thank you Mr. Carter for teaching me that education can be an excellent instrument for critically thinking and intelligently dealing with the harrowing issues of our world. Otherwise, I might have carelessly breezed through the rest of my schooling career without a thought to the consequences of having an education.