Having a great teacher can be life-changing. Mr. Goodney, my 9th grade Advanced English teacher, pushed me in ways I hadn’t been pushed in the classroom previously. He didn’t grade me compared to my classmates£»he graded us on a personal grading scale.

Mr. Goodney encouraged me but I just couldn’t seem to please Mr. Goodney, no matter how hard I worked. I continued to see the dreaded Bs, sometimes even a C, so frequently that I said goodbye to my hopes of being a middle student. I was a really diligent nerd(ÁîÈËÑá·³µÄÈË).

Yet at the end of the semester when report cards came out, I had an “A” next to my English class, and I realized that the letter he had written on my report card was just a way to make me work harder than I ever had. He made me push myself to think deeper, write better, and analyze more thoroughly. He didn’t hate me as I initially thought, and I looked back embarrassed about all those times when I showed frustration and dissatisfaction with a returned grade.