Recently, I finally realized what I want to do when I grow up. I've always known I've wanted to do something to better the lives of others, but for years, I couldn't find quite the right thing. Then, a couple weeks ago, I was helping a girl study for math, she just couldn't grasp it. Instead of teaching her like her teachers did, I gave her a way of looking at it differently. That's when she finally grasped it. She went from a D to an A in that class.

I always thought I would never want to be a teacher until it hit me that every time I couldn't get something, it wasn't my fault. I was being taught the wrong way. I grew up not being able to read or write until around fourth grade. At the end of third grade, a teacher finally took me to the side and said, instead of learning the sounds of words, memorize what they look like, as if they were pictures. It clicked then for me. It was hard to do it letter by letter because with dyslexia, the letters appeared to move, but now looking at the whole word itself, they seemed to stay together, even if there was movement still, IT WAS EASIER.

With the common core, students are taught one way, and that's the way they are expected to get it. There is no time to take that kid to the side and explain it a different way, because you have these quarterlies that KINDERGARTNERS are taking. All those kids like me won't be able to unlock their true potential.

I want to build a school when I get older. One that's free for everyone, but were the common core is not welcome. One were there are teachers and many teaching assistants so if you don't get it one way, someone can explain it to you another. You can learn together, but if you need one on one time, you have it. Were you aren't "taught how to take a test" but given the same question every year like "how do you cure cancer?" and kindergartners may respond "Fairies" or "Santa" but as the years go on, apply their knowledge, and hear others ideas, where a 12th grader could say, "Take a enzyme (some sort of RNA polymerase) that attaches to the env code located on HIV RNA so that the virus will not be able to produce it's viral envelope, hence not permitting it to reproduce."

At this school, everyone can explore their ideas, ask questions, make mistakes, and take in the world around. Teaching these students whats possible instead of whats impossible. No one should be attached to some letter on a piece of paper that defines their future.

Albert Einstein once said, "Everybody is a Genius. But If You Judge a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing that It is Stupid."
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