When I was a freshman, I spent most of my days coming home from school every day and just playing video games. I thought that I didn’t have to try and accomplish anything in high school and I gave up on myself. Times were hard. High school was harder than I thought it would be. I never had a teacher believe in me and that I could accomplish anything. I had a teacher when I was in 8th grade that told me  I would be flipping patties for the rest of my life and for a while, I believed it. But the truth is, I never thought I would be anything special. 

I gave up after my 8th-grade year when all my friends from grade school just stopped being friends with me. 

I remember in November of 2019, I was in Mr. Mays’ class, which is where I would go every day for 6th hour. I acted up and just didn’t pay attention to any of the lessons. I remember one day,  getting up to leave when the bell rang and Mr. Mays held me back. I was shocked. I couldn’t think of anything, in particular, that would land me in a conversation with Mr. Mays. 

For a few seconds, he was quiet. He just stared, and the immature freshman in me asked, “Are you just gonna stare or are you gonna open your mouth?” He looked at me and said, “I don’t know why you have this goal of not achieving. You are smarter than you know and you’re not living up to your own expectations.” 

For the longest time, I had never had a teacher tell me to try, or that I could succeed. I felt more and more as the bible would say, The best we can give is filthy rags. I was put down for so long that I forgot my strength.

From then on, I began to put effort into my writing pieces and class work.  My grades only went up from there. I couldn’t believe it took one conversation and boom, we were put back on track.

 In my Junior year, I was Managing Editor for the yearbook. In my Senior year, I have two part-time jobs, I am in the co-op program, and I am the managing editor of yearbook.  Looking back, I am proud to have been a student of Mr. Jeremy Mays. He sparked an interest in achieving a few goals of mine. I never thought I would make it this far.

Mr. Mays is a great mentor and teacher. He saw my potential like no one else had. He saw I was putting up with the rain and led me to a rainbow. 

Thank you Mr. Mays, for always seeing my potential even when I couldn’t.