Personal Narrative

Nickolas Gold-Leighton

Professor J. Pisano 

LANG-120-001 

January 28th, 2014

What Makes a Student? 

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions” -Oliver Wendell Homes, Jr. Throughout my life I can look back and take notice at the moments that have influenced my love for knowledge. As a child I always felt more empowered to learn when my teachers and educators were passionate about what they wanted to instill. My topic for this class deals with education for elementary aged students. I have always felt that learning is such a delicate stage for all children to approach, but empowering and facilitating the passion for young students is when we, the community, receive talented and motivated individuals. 

My early days of elementary school were, of course, filled with the usual activities. In the first grade I transferred schools mid-year and every teacher was incapable of adding more students to their already oversized classrooms. Mr. Smucker, a first grade teacher, agreed to fill one more seat for me. This act was extraordinarily kind and allowed me to continue learning without any pause in my education. For the remainder of the year, Mr. Smucker picked up on my need to make new connections with the other students and helped to foster my new transition between schools. I later found Mr. Smucker’s teaching style helped to make learning fun and desirable, something that I had never encountered until this moment. Mr. Smucker loved what he was able to share with his students. His passion for teaching helped me develop the love for effort. Putting hard work into the simple homework I had made me feel successful and even gave me a sense of belonging, especially when Mr. Smucker gave everyone praise for the determination it took to complete their simple assignments. Mr. Smucker loved teaching, and he loved sharing with each of us even more. Communicating with children through activities and experiences were the ways I found learning an adventure in his class. I believe that being able to encourage young children to learn in technology, science, art, and history is only as powerful as the passion behind each of those mediums. Watching home taped VHS’s of “The Crocodile Hunter” in Mr. Smucker’s class helped to learn about nature in a friendly and entertaining way. Making connections for students that are accessible and enriching are the moments where kids feel uninhibited to learn without borders, laugh without judgment, and create with every ounce of brain power. Early education should be accessible for all students. Every child should be given the opportunity to achieve and many are never given the encouragement and tools to try. 

   In the fourth grade again I changed schools, but this time I was given the entire year to learn. Ms. Smith’s fourth grade was a collection of all sorts and almost immediately I was enthralled by the ambitious attitude of our teacher. As I have noticed throughout early education, teachers can possess the opportunity and the liability to make or break a child’s infant desire to learn. Ms. Smith gave me the ability to learn through movement. Each day consisted of running, exercising, and expressing ourselves in the name of learning. The traditional style of lecturing small students concerned my teacher because she felt that it was a poor form of communication. While learning through movement, the opportunity to speak and engage while learning helped to channel our ample energy. Looking back I value my teacher’s want to get everyone moving and engaged. Commonly in American culture we tend to over diagnose children as ADD/ADHD prone. Why not allow students express the want to learn and engage in ways that make them feel like children? Not to preach over their heads and not to demean their spirit but to explore ways like my teacher found where we allow the whole class to feel active, not passive in the learning experience.

Middle school forever changed my appreciation for the world around me. ArtSpace Charter School ingrained me with arts of all sorts. Dance, performance, literature, history, you name it. If it was something creative, odds are we covered it. My middle school was made up of less than 300 students over nine grade levels (K-8). We were a small school newly established and were not yet even on the map of scholastic notoriety. Throughout the three years I was there, I discovered how much being passionate about life could influence an individual’s success. My favorite teachers in middle school taught me to question why I held certain values and morals important. Others believed that I could act in lead roles when at the height of seventh grade insecurities. Others felt that by providing field trips to locations across WNC would help foster our interest in self-discovery and willingness to understand advanced concepts. As every student carries a challenging array of questions and ideas, being open to learn from your students is I believe, just as important as teaching them. 

My topic of education is something that I find interesting because I, myself have been there like countless others. As a kid you want to relate to your teacher, and when/if that happens you find that working hard for your goals becomes worthy and accomplishable. Working with young kids would be a way of helping to spark the enjoyment of school for others that I had received from the few individuals who truly cared about their service they provided to others. “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.”-C. S. Lewis