Planting Seeds with Discernment by Antonia

Planting Seeds with Discernment by Antonia - January 2025 Scholarship Essay

My fourth grade teacher, Ms. Kim Towsley, whom I was fortunate enough to also have as my fifth grade teacher, has had a great impact on my educational journey. She may have had a tendency for bluntness and a predilection for dark humor, but underneath the sarcasm, there was a deep passion for teaching, a well-placed zeal that truly changed the trajectory of my learning experience at quite a vital stage of life: childhood.

Ms. Towsley excited her students to learn. She created an environment where we could actually enjoy soaking in new information, no matter the difficulty. And boy, was there difficulty. From POWs (math Problems of the Week) to Scholastic News articles, to timed six-minute 100 question math quizzes, there was quite a bit for my nine/ten year old brain to soak in. In her classroom I learned the value of fairness, awareness and perseverance. I also learned the important lesson that you can work incredibly hard on something and not receive a spectacular outcome from it. In other words, I began to evaluate myself more deeply thanks to her. I will be forever grateful for how she gently but determinedly nudged her students to implore about the world.

One of the more crucial examples of how Ms. Towsley’s teaching made her stand out from other teachers was her way of not shying away from showing her kids a truthful perspective, especially in the subject of history, yet also not describing too much out of wisdom that we would eventually learn all of it at the right place and time in our lives. We discussed the difficult-to-fathom ⅗ clause, and the US government driving out Native Americans from their rightfully owned land. We touched on colonization, but not to the extent that I now know in my junior year History of Americas course. I often feel that she wanted to offer us more but didn’t, for she knew that there would come a time to learn the heavier versions and it wasn’t quite then. As much as I believe that exposing us to the more mature ideas at a young age was a brilliant way of planting seeds in our minds, I admire the wisdom behind limiting the depth of these difficult conversations at a certain point. I am fascinated by what I am learning now in more honest detail, remembering the foundational information that was taught perfectly to me years ago. She really fostered my love of US history through detailed conversations about big states vs. small states (equal vs. proportional representation at the Constitutional Convention) and the roles of each of the three branches of government. Because of her influence, I pursued an interest in government and US history by joining Constitution Team my sophomore year of high school. I hope to continue pursuing my interest in this field later on in life and explore what else it could hold for me.

The world is lacking in enough Ms. Towsleys. My wish for everybody in the midst of their academic journey is that they may be blessed with a teacher or mentor with the same level of dedication and desire to provide an honest education to young people. It is frustratingly challenging to find a teacher who not only has a true gift for teaching their students, but who also commits to doing so effectively and with compassion. However, I did find one all those years ago, and she stays with me in all my classrooms even today.