High school is a period of time that most people have to go through in their lives. I've always been told that high school was supposed to be the best four years of my life, although for me that wasn't true. I once heard from one of my friends that when we go through something that's emotionally hard, our subconscious blocks out those memories. That's exactly what my brain did -- most of my high school experience is a giant black block. I'm not writing this article to talk about my whole high school experience though. Instead, I want to write about a few pieces of very influential advice that two of my teachers gave me during my freshman year. These pieces of advice still impact and guide me today.
Like I said before, my high school experience was so bad that I hardly remember anything from it. This piece of advice was from my biology in-class resource teacher. For those of you who aren't special education or have never been in a classroom with more than one teacher, an in-class resource teacher is basically an aid or a special education teacher that helps out in the class. This is typically the case when there is at least one student who needs extra help because of their disability.
It was the end of the year and I had asked him to sign my yearbook. He wrote in it to have fun and make memories in my life because the years will go by quickly. At first, I thought it was sort of stupid that he wrote that and I didn't believe him because I didn't see the truth in his words. I always thought that my high school years would go slowly, and that I would have lots of time to make memories. I didn't realize how fast my senior year and high school graduation came, and I was so sad that I didn't take his words seriously. Now that I am a sophomore in college, I listen to those wise words and I try to make as many memories as I possibly can.
The next piece of advice I remember getting was also during my freshman year. These wise words came from my English teacher. I don't actually remember the situation that brought up this piece of advice, but she told my entire class that if something wasn't true, why would you get offended by it? She went on to tell us that we shouldn't be offended by untrue words, and that the truth hurts more than anything. Even though I saw and understood some of the truth of these wise words at the time, I again didn't see the full blown meaning of them until I got to college. Even though I had already seen how it could be hard to speak the direct truth, I only recently realized that hearing the direct truth can be harsh, if not worded correctly.
These pieces of advice will always stick with me for my entire life. No matter how little I remember from high school, I will always look back at these two times of my high school career and listen to what was said to me. I want to give a shout-out to the two teachers who gave me those pieces of advice. I want them to know that even though I wasn't able to appreciate them at those specific moments, I do so now.
