Some stories are meant to be told as they are and some are meant to be adjusted to fit the audience. I'm choosing to share this story the way I told it to fit my audience when it had to be told and below it is the story without adjustments.
First Story
I used to know a girl who didn't like going to school because she didn't see the point. People around her weren't doing anything related to what they learned at school. They didn't mind if she missed school or didn't . They didn't think school was all that important . So up until she was 12 years old she missed a lot of school, had bad grades , fell very behind in reading and then of course didn't want to read because it was too hard, always wondered what she would be like when she grew up , but didn't really have a vision. Then one day, her family went through a big move to a new place and something clicked. She knew that being in a new place would mean no one would know that she didn't do well in school before or why she didn't care. She decided that this new move in a way was a new start for her. At her new school she had an awesome math teacher who inspired her to want to do her very best to show that she could handle the work because he pushed her to a very tough math class that he just knew she should be in , went with his gut feeling. This made her want to prove to him that she was what he saw in her and she did . She worked hard and earned good grades . All of a sudden she realized, it wasn't just in math , she was doing well in all her subjects because school was all of a sudden important and she was doing it for herself and the more she did it for herself, the more inspired she became. That girl later went on to be in the top 5% of her high school graduating class, to do well in college and to use her education in her career. That girl never regretted the day she chose for school to be about her and to prove to herself that she could do it.
Second Story
I was a girl who grew up in a home where education was not important because even though both of my parents had completed higher education , they didn't see it as anything important . They always talked about it being a waste of time and whenever I didn't want to go to school, I just got to not go. Homework wasn't important , grades didn't matter, other things mattered to them much more, but that's another story. I fell behind in all my classes , was below grade level in reading and at risk for retention. Then we moved to the United States , the biggest move of my life . I knew no one would know I was that girl who was failing, no one would know I was the girl whose parents let her write her own excuses notes, I was the girl who didn't care. I decided it was time for a new start. I was so incredibly lucky to have an awesome, awesome math teacher in middle school who pushed me to his algebra class because he believed in me and ironically I got to overhear his argument with my counselor and exactly how that went . He believed in me ( Mr. Aafedt) so I believed in me. He believed in me, so I had to prove to him , but most importantly to myself that I was someone who could handle the work, someone who could do well, and I did. I worked hard and I saw results and from then on I never stopped working hard because all of a sudden school mattered because someone believed in me doing well at school, someone whose education paid off, my teacher. So I began to see education as something that mattered . I went on to be in the top 5% of my high school, went to one of the best colleges in this country on a full tuition merit leadership scholarship for my BA and later completed 2 MA degrees . I am a teacher because someone showed me a long time ago that education matters , that choices matter and it happened to be a teacher . A teacher inspired me. A teacher opened a world of possibilities for me .
Teachers matter. Students matter. No matter how big or small our impact can feel some days , there's always that child out there whose teacher made a difference . That's why I tell the other story to my audience when appropriate , my audience being students , the background of the real story is too heavy but the moral is the same- you are responsible for you. You are responsible for your success and it's never too late . Education matters . Choices matter.
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