Influential Teacher by Everett

Influential Teacher by Everett - June 2021 Scholarship Essay

School teachers play an exceptionally large part in the development of students from elementary school to high school. A teacher can influence and inspire kids to do great things for the rest of their lives. My most influential teacher is without a doubt a teacher from my junior year of high school by the name of Dr. Alex Gotay. After my sophomore year of high school, I transferred from my local school to a catholic private school across the city for new opportunities. I first met Dr. Gotay at a meet and greet, we immediately clicked, and he was assigned as my mentor.
At first, I felt great about the change and was extremely excited things quickly changed. As I went through the first two weeks of school, my optimism about the situation changed. During this time my eyes were opened to the cruel realities of being a minority in America. My teammates and myself were 3 of 11 African American kids in the school of around 600 total students. Every day we were continually outcaste and treated differently. We were harassed about the dress code, we were told we were only there because we were athletes, and it was hard to get to meet people because we felt like everyone was against us. By the time, the day was over we were all exhausted, some of us started to feel depressed.
Luckily, I always had an outlet, someone to talk to, a familiar environment where I could relax and get some weight off my shoulders. Dr. G is what we called him for short, had a room where we would go to talk, hang out, and get advice. Dr. G talked to me and my teammates as well as my other minority counterparts through multiple situations and taught us many life lessons. Dr, G was someone we could count on to talk us through a situation and give us another outlook. He became a father figure to me in the long run. I do not know if I would have been able to make it through that year without Dr.G. He taught me many valuable lessons that will be prevalent in my future endeavors.
Dr. G left that next year as did I, and I returned to my home school. We have continued to keep in touch, and he checks on me often. Dr. G sends motivational messages to me and talks to me about college, what happens, and how to try my best to stay on track. I am so blessed to have someone like him in my life, these types of people change kids’ lives and truly do what they do to help and assist kids. NO matter where I go or what I do I know I can always count on Dr. G to have words of encouragement for me. I appreciate him and cannot thank him enough.

Everett Marlatt