During my freshmen year of high school, I hated my writing class.
The novels I was assigned to read where rather boring and difficult to understand. My passion for reading and writing was starting to fade. However, that was until I reached Sophomore year.
My potential increased mostly due to the assistance of my teacher.
We'll call her Ms. Robinson.
Ms. Robinson was a young woman from Irish descent, although her appearance was youthful, she had the attitude of a strict prep school teacher.
Rarely she would ever talk about her personal life, and whenever she was asked she simply avoided the question. Outside of the classroom, she was not liked by many of her students. The majority of the students, in fact maybe all if I remember correctly, hated her guts because she was such a difficult teacher.
So how come I am so fond of her?
The amount of work she handed out overwhelmed me every weekend and her essays were no laughing matter. Besides, during the time I took her class, I remember not being close to her at all. Rarely I would visit after school, only if I missed an assignment or because she had given the class detention.
Yes, I am almost positive I hated Ms. Robinson that year.
However, aside from her personality traits and teaching mechanisms, there was something admirable about Ms. R; and this would be her work ethic.
I remember the first two to three weeks of school we were assigned an essay which no one from class expected to do well because we were fresh out of summer. When I revised my paper for extra credit, I remember handing it to her, and she graded it right in front of me in about two minutes.
Mind you not, this was an 800-word paper.
She was able to pinpoint every major to the tiniest mistakes in my essay. I was utterly shocked and impressed to see her standards for papers. Immediately, that's when I knew I was doomed- I mean in for some hard work that year.
Over the next few months, Ms. Robinson gave several essays, and group projects to do. In one of her group projects, I and my partner stayed up until one in the morning finishing our assignment. No one wanted to disappoint Ms. R, her grading rubric was on high standards.
For the entire sophomore year, Ms. R pushed me to perfect every essay I wrote into A student material and group project to amazing presentations. I never understood how impactful and influential her class was for me until I went onto Junior year. Now I had a new teacher, one that was the complete opposite from Ms. Robinson.
Her work ethic was not up to par, and she could basically talk about herself for the entire class period. Ms. Robinson certainly improved my writing abilities to the point where I became the exemplary student, and my grades for Junior year were consistently good.
She prepared me so well for the next two following years of high school that, every teacher I got after her (even in college) still does not push me as much as Ms. R. Currently she is not teaching at my school anymore, she left for unknown reasons during my junior year of high school.
Then one day, about three months ago, I ran into her in Bed, Bath, and Beyond out of all places. To my surprise, she had gotten married, and she was now a mother of a beautiful baby girl.
I was extremely happy for her, I told her how much she helped me out with the rest of my high school years even though she was not there.
Ms. Robinson taught me how to value knowledge and the power that teaching can have on an individual.
