Undergraduate /
'Corruption in schools curriculum' - Issue of importance - my history teacher [35]
UT (freshman) topic A- someone who has impacted your lifeTopic A (Freshman)
Write an essay in which you tell us about someone who has made an impact on your life and explain how and why this person is important to you
My history teacher was consistently biased on certain subjects, mostly pertaining to political philosophy, history issues, and religious views. I consider myself a liberal democrat. She was definitely a conservative republican. The chasm between my history teacher and I continued to develop as the presidential election progressed. My opinion was always undermined and criticized in front of my classmates. She once commented, "All democrats want to do for the economy is print off more money." At that point I took it upon myself to research the truth. The next day I showed her Obama's economic rescue plan, and her response was that CNN was biased and was not a reliable resource. After a couple months my tolerance began to diminish, and when 6th period came about I felt resentment.
The election was just around the corner. For three days we held a classroom debate. The class was divided into democrats and republicans. I was on the democratic side with two other classmates; my history teacher sat across from me with the rest of the class, the republicans. If I had only perceived her as biased before, it was definitely clear now.
My heart was pounding fiercely, my stomach dropped to my knees; I had taken a giant step out of my comfort zone. My teacher and I had incredibly different view points and I took her knowledge for granted, she knew plenty more than I. During the three days, I had to continually remind myself to not be biased and to remain open minded, after all that's the issue that troubled me in the classroom. I had to keep to the facts and the issues. Not always did I know the democratic stance on an issue, but I grew from what I didn't know. Anything I was unsure about I simply looked it up online, carefully considered the source and brought back what I learned to class the next day. Debating with a teacher taught me to be respectful to my rival. I learned to make sure both of us had an equal time to talk, and to by no means interrupt.
School is a place where we meet friends, receive our education, and discover ourselves under the guidance of trained adults. I though teachers should remain neutral and teach students how to find the information to formulate an opinion. I was crushed to find that not all my teachers were fair and some were blatantly closed minded . Unbeknownst to her, my biased, opinionated, conservative U.S. History teacher ignited a passion for truth and a confidence in my own voice. Through her unintentional influence, I learned to speak up and to realize that I don't know everything, but I can teach myself.