The Power of Your Peers by Elizabeth

The Power of Your Peers by Elizabeth - July 2021 Scholarship Essay

As an elementary school student, I walked into class every morning ready to complete any work that was presented. In each class, I independently worked on the classwork and occasionally had the opportunity to work with those around me. However, I never truly desired to collaborate with others because I was able to get the work done quicker by myself. If I any had any questions on the content or lesson, my teachers were always by my side to assist me. Nevertheless,I had never made it a priority to personally get to know the people who were teaching me five days a week.
However, in my junior year of high school, the way in which I interacted with my peers had entirely changed. At the beginning of the semester, I was determined to designate more time to learn French. I reached out to my French teacher and asked her if she would be willing to have weekly conversations with me in French. She gladly accepted my offer, and every Friday I could count on speaking French with her for an hour. We discussed what we had planned for the upcoming weekend, what we were going to do in class, and even politics.
During one of our sessions, we were talking about the lack of student participation in class and how uncomfortable the silence was whenever she asked the class a general question. I told her that I could practically hear the crickets in the room when everyone hesitated to answer one of her questions. This led me to ask her what “crickets” was in French, and she wasn’t quite sure. We soon discovered that “grillon” was “cricket” in French. The next day in class, it was completely silent again when she asked everyone a question. I broke the silence and said “grillons, grillons, grillons”, she thought it was so funny and we both smiled at each other.
This interpersonal exchange taught me the great significance of interpersonally connecting with your teachers and those who you work with. Prior to this exchange, I never felt the need to interact with my teachers or ask them what they had planned for the weekend, and because of that I always saw them only as teachers and nothing more. Although, my silly exchange with my French teacher taught me the importance of putting in the extra effort and time to get to know teachers. I would have never enjoyed my junior year French class if it wasn’t for the small interactions I shared with my teacher.