I have always hated English since I have had trouble juggling Spanish and English in my life. I was always made fun of in my life just because I am Hispanic. I was always ridiculed for having a slight accent. Throughout time I lost my accent and could properly speak English, but I still had a dislike of English in my life like a bad after taste in your mouth. Everything changed once I met my 9th grade teacher Mr. Carter, a physically short yet intellectual man. He was brilliant in teaching English and completely changed my perspective of English in 9 months.

Mr. Carter, was called “the hobbit” for two reasons. One he was small, only around 5 feet tall now for us in 9th grade we were not fully grown, but we were all still taller than Mr. Carter. Two Mr. Carter loves the writer J.R.R.Tolkien and had us read the Hobbit. He also had in his possession a cardboard cutout of Bilbo Baggins. Mr. Carter would say that Bilbo was him when he was younger that he had ridden the barrels down the ferocious stream to get away from the elves and fought the scaley beast that was Smaug. Mr. Carter had a personality that was bursting with light. He had a smile that was contagious and made you feel joy. He was always so nice to everyone no matter what the situation was.

The first day of 9th grade I walked into my 4th period class which was English, and I thought “Great, another boring class I have to sit down and listen to a teacher lecture the hour and a half long, just great.” Little did I know I was so wrong about this class. First Mr. Carter had a table with two tubes on top with a sign on each one with “HPA” and “LPA”. I was very confused thinking I had walked into a science class instead of my English class. All the students sat down, and Mr. Carter started his class and introduced himself as a hobbit in hiding.

Mr. Carter began by explaining what the two tubes meant he said the HPA meant high positive attitude and the other LPA meant low positive attitude. Mr. Carter explained that if you pay attention in his class and had HPA would have fun in his class. Mr. Carter poured two liquids together in the tube labeled HPA and a foam shot out of the tube keeping its form it all happened in an instant. Once done explaining why it is important to have HPA he moved to the tube labeled LPA and poured two liquids together and the foam did not shoot up it slowly started creeping up but so slow we lost interest very quickly and Mr. Carter told us “yeah you don’t want this.”

From that moment things looked different to me. All this time I really had LPA toward English because of all the bad that came with it, but Mr. Carter had a different thought process that helped me understand myself better. The next day I had Mr. Carter’s class we started to talk about books he asked, “why are books important to us?” I replied in my head “they are not.” but I quickly corrected myself mentally hitting myself in the face and remembering the experiment he did with the tubes. I needed to change and now, but sometimes change does not come in an instant. We started to discuss about books, and he pointed out his favorite book The Hobbit and what importance it had to him.

I read the first few chapters as Mr. Carter instructed to us to read and thought it was an all-right book nothing different from the others, so… “Boring.” The next day we had class he really went into depth with the book for example, the Baggins were to be the ideal hobbit the perfect hobbit by everyone else’s standards like the door to their hobbit hole was to be green with a gold knob for the handle because they were expected to. To not go out on adventures and always stay in their town of the shire. I had never really gone into depth with books and somehow, I was excited to know this knowledge of just a book I had never really understood why.

Throughout the year I still failed Mr. Carters class twice and I am not proud of it. The second time I failed his class, Mr. Carter pulled me aside and asked me what was going on. I told him I did not find English incredibly fun or entertaining I enjoyed video games a lot better and were a lot more fun! Mr. Carter was frustrated for a second, but I now see why he was so frustrated. So he cut me a deal we would work together on the assignments and read together after school. Over the next months, he slowly showed me what reading and writing really is. It was not just a thing we do daily, it was how we express ourselves and how others can understand us through our writing. One of the last things He taught me was never be afraid to speak up and do what is right for my future education in English. Little did I know I would be speaking up next year.

My sophomore year in high school I participated in an English class and my teacher was Jabba The Hutt (this is the closest description I can give you and because I do not feel comfortable revealing her name) The first day of English I thought, this will be different I will keep a positive attitude toward English. I felt this until I walked through the gates of Hell and saw who I was with in my English class. Not only did I have Jabba The Hut as my teacher, I was with Satan’s spawn for students. In my class we had the druggie group and the popular group both which had one thing in common: they do not care about school or the teacher. When I say I walked through the gates of Hell, I meant it. The first day of class not one thing was taught. Jabba was not allowed to speak because no one would let her speak. It was a living Hell and this was just the beginning.

The next time I was in hell I tried to be a little more assertive in my progress toward my education and talked to Jabba, she turned out to be every bit as lazy I could have ever imagined. She was as if a sloth and a snail created a creature, she was this creature. She was incredibly slow to help me and teach me. The next week of class she tried to take a more assertive time in class and teach us, but still almost no one cared for her authority as a teacher. Her frustration boiled over and one girl had her cell phone taken away during class. Jabba put it on her desk in the corner of the room. We had to leave an assignment to her at her desk during class, so one of the girl’s friends decided to do the assignment and retrieve the phone while giving in his assignment. The boy succeeded in retrieving the phone and giving it to his friend. At the end of the class, however, when Jabba was looking for the phone to give the phone back to the teenage girl, she could not find it. So, Jabba decided to call the school police officer to our classroom.

The police officer was a tall physically built Caucasian man and was very firm in his words. After informing the officer what was going on, the officer put himself in front of the classroom and said, “Everyone phones on your desk now!” with an anger that reached the depths of my soul. Everyone out of fear pulled their phones out and put it onto their desks except for the girl whose phones was taken; she kept hers hidden. The officer continued and said every single one of you will be checked for this phone in their backpacks and have a “body check” is what he called it. The girl was worried they would find the phone on her and she would get more in trouble she quickly put her phone on the ground and kicked it across the room to the boy sitting next to me. The officer saw this action and told her to go grab her phone and walk with him to the principal’s office. Once this whole show ended, I thought to myself, “this is it. I am done with this class,” and went straight to my counselor to change my class to another teacher.

When I was done changing my schedule, I had completely changed my periods around and was quite distraught with what I had now I really like how everything was arranged before the change, but I hated that class. I ended up having my new English class after lunch so maybe I would feel differently after a full stomach! After lunch I head to my new English class with my new English teacher Ms. Drake. When I was walking toward the classroom door, my stomach drops in fear of another hell waiting for me behind the door so I sat there for a moment saying a quick prayer that this would be different, and I walked in.

Once I entered through the door, I saw that I was the first student to enter the classroom and Ms. Drake said with a sweet and gentle voice “Hello there how are you?” I replied, “I’m doing good.” She asked, “you’re my new student Brad, right?” I said yes, she was thrilled to see me excited even, I was so confused. She then explained to me that my counselor had filled her in with what situation I was in and was delighted to help me through anything I needed.

Ms. Drake was an angelic being with the smile that warmed your heart like the sun on your skin. She was a sweet old lady who loved her students with all her heart and wanted what was best for them no matter what the cost. Ms. Drake was tall she had to have been 6 feet tall with beautiful blonde hair that reached her shoulders and always wore dresses to class. Ms. Drake helped me throughout the year with all my problems whether they were about school or with girls, she helped me through everything. She made me love being in her class and was so happy to see me progress in English. I can without a doubt say that changing my classes around made my time in high school spectacular.

So, in the end I loved English because of the things I went through. I grew whether they were bad or good they helped me grow as a person. The most important thing for me was when I chose to change my classes I may have not liked it, but it needed to happen. Mr. Carter was right all along and never be afraid to speak up for my future education that is a lesson I will carry with me for the rest of my life. That is what I learned from my experiences with English the good the bad and the ugly. So, what did you learn from my experiences? Who do you want to be? Jabba The Hutt? Or someone like Mr. Carter or Ms. Drake