Teacher of My Year by Walter

Teacher of My Year by Walter - July 2014 Scholarship Essay

If for some reason you decided to shadow a fifteen-year-old Walter Guillory II, you would grow accustomed to the groans from a high school junior forced to muster the strength roll out of bed at 6:00 in the morning, five days each week. I detested high school. My classmates, an inappropriately exuberant and loquacious bunch, probably thought me strange ever since I joined the high school the previous year. Admittedly, my social skills were less than extraordinary, likely due to my six years' homeschooling background prior to attending public high school. I became involved in no cliques, hardly felt any camaraderie, and was characterized in hindsight as awkward. Thankfully, I seldom felt shunned or victimized, probably due to being so oblivious to my own goofiness. I knew this however: I would never fit in there. Fortunately, there were a few teachers that gave me a place. Mrs. Delcambre stands out even among those great instructors.

Possessing the ability to effortlessly lead a class with a combination of authoritativeness and sensitivity, Mrs. Delcambre represented the effective teacher to the highest degree. Often described as the favorite teacher of many students, she delivered lessons that transcended mere book knowledge. She taught life, not just English III. In the midst of a high school where I felt like a tense outsider, Mrs. Delcambre managed to create, for me, a classroom where I might relax and feel fine. She was an in-school mother, both dissuasive of insolence and encouraging of student achievement.

I was a lazy student, and high school did very little to alter my proclivity for slothfulness. Take a tiny glimpse into my thought process at that time: "What is my motivation? Why should I try harder? I already get good grades without any effort." I failed to understand the future repercussions of atrophied study skills. Because the vast majority of my teachers could not connect emotionally with their students, the school felt cold and unforgiving, a place that guillotined the determination of students and replaced it with apathetic slack-jawed expressions. Except in that bastion of warm concern I knew as Mrs. Delcambre's room. This woman owned to power to transform the mundane drab of grammar and literature into an artisanal expression of human emotion and spirit. Not for exhibition, either. No, her palpable sincerity energized that classroom, turning my bleak subconscious discourse of "Ugh, school again," into a brighter, "I wonder what Mrs. Delcambre will offer today!" At least for that 90-minute period. As short as it may have been, her class represented the illuminated, enlightened part of my school day. A time to anticipate, realizing that I could be comfortable there and feel appreciated by a teacher who genuinely loved her students. Her strength of character and personal convictions, having been tested by a 30+ year tenure at the school, provided us with a beautiful model for human decency. She was the entire package, with a neat little bow of mischievous humor adorning the top.