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Trey Burling

Prof. Sipes

English 1101-561

19 November 2020

Difficult Changes

I have undergone lots of changes throughout my life as a student. While there have been

some great high moments, when it comes to grades, I suffered quite a big drop. The low points

are what help us build back up to the top.

My Freshman year was by far the lowest point in my life. The environment change from

middle school to high school was a completely new experience for me. A thought that constantly

plagued my mind was “am I smart enough for this?”. Every night I would get home from school

and stare at my homework, contemplating whether or not I should even try. Obviously the

correct answer was to push through and try my hardest, but that was not the case for me. As the

days flew by more and more homework kept piling up on my humongous mountain of

uncompleted work. Naturally, this began to put heaps of stress on me, which further deteriorated

my effort towards school. I would go to school, embrace the overwhelming embarrassment of

never having my homework done, and then go home just to repeat the same course.

I have always had the mindset that teachers are just there to teach the subject. The

thought that they were an individual who could sympathize with you never came to mind. During

my Freshman year, I had an English teacher named Ms. Bianco. She would always check in on

everyone to make sure they were doing alright. When she came to check on me, I would always

tell her that I was fine. It was embarrassing to talk to anyone about it, including my parents. At

some point she began to catch on that my grades were sinking. Good grades are an absolute
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necessity for college. Even though I knew this, I still felt so unmotivated to even attempt one

problem on my homework. It was terrifying knowing that if this kept going on, I would not have

a chance at getting into college.

Ms. Bianco is a calm and collected teacher who is always willing to offer advice to her

students. Third quarter was a huge turning point for my motivation and mindset. It was at the end

of 6th period English class, I was just about to walk out of the door when suddenly my teacher

asked me to talk to her for a few minutes. My face immediately started to burn up, my palms

became sweaty, and all I could think about was how badly I wanted to leave the classroom. She

sat me down and talked to me about my grades. There was a feeling of understanding that I got

from her, which quickly calmed me down. We talked about which classes I struggled in the

most, and ways I can get back on track, one being to stay organized by having separate binders

for each class. She informed me that she would be emailing my parents with steps to get back in

shape. That included multiple chances at extra credit that she offered to me.

This was the beginning of my rise back up to being a good student. After having the talk

with Ms. Bianco, I went home and started pumping out as much homework as I possibly could. I

went to all of my teachers and asked them if I could have any chances at extra credit. Almost all

of them agreed, which was a huge stress reliever. Slowly but surely, I began to piece my grades

back together. The massive final step I had to take was to get good grades on my final tests. Due

to the change in my mindset, I was able to study hours on end. Before I could even realize it, the

day for the test came. Hours of studying is what made me so confident on my tests. A couple of

weeks later we got our test results back, and I got a great grade.

I consider myself to be incredibly lucky to even get the chance at pulling myself back up.

The next school year I got all A’s and B’s. It was all thanks to Ms. Bianco that I can have a
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chance at getting into college. There truly are not enough words to describe how thankful I am to

have had such a supportive teacher in my greatest time of need. If I could have any wish, it

would be to ensure that any student in a dire need of help receives the same support that I got.