My dad has always been my backbone since I was younger. He has pushed me to be the best me I can be which has helped me in more ways than one. He has taught me about working hard and getting past myself to achieve everything I need to succeed in life. Nothing was handed to me, and it took a lot of work to get where I am today.

Growing up in a family that was together, with minimal to none money issues, I was considered to have had an “easy childhood”. The only drama we had were the daily bickering between siblings and arguments over what was for dinner that night. I have been recently asked to look back on the quality and difficulty of  my education in public schools. It had always been a mediocre experience for me, I never really had to push myself hard to succeed. I was that little girl who got 600’s on all of her SOL’s and would come home from school bragging about having a 110% in math and 120% in science. School never phased a problem for me, it was always something I was exceptional at.
When I was in fourth grade I had one of my first hardships in school. I couldn’t understand how to divide using the fraction bar. I remember the first day we started learning it; I went into a daze during the middle of the lesson thinking i’ll get it eventually. Later that day I went home to my dad telling him I was done learning math in school. I told him I didn’t need to know any math in the real world. I informed him I wanted to be an english teacher when I grew up, and I simply didn’t need to know the math we were learning. He went on to asking me what I would do if I needed to split up the class for group work or if I needed to grade papers. I just stared at him in anger of not being able to understand division. He asked what was really bothering me so I went on to tell him what happened that day during school. He sat me on his lap and told me that the next day when I was in her class to ask her if she had a moment to talk so I could explain my difficulties and hopefully find a solution. Being the defiant fourth grader I was, I never actually talked to my teacher like my dad wanted to. I thought that there was no way my dad was going to find out the truth if I actually went to her or just told him that I did.
My dad would also pick me up at the bus stop after school.That day when I came home from school when I got off of the bus I didn’t see my dad there waiting for me. As soon as the bus passed I saw his car. He came to pick me up in his car rather than on foot. Our house was two houses away from where the bus dropped us off. I was confused as to why my dad would drive when we had always walked home together, this had never happened before. Soon after getting into the car and after passing our house, in complete confusion, I asked my dad where we were going. He told me we were going back to school to check something out. I asked him over and over again why we were going back to school when I had only just gotten home. He kept telling me to wait till we get there and he would tell me. After getting to the school parking lot, he came down to my eye level and told me that I needed to go back into my teacher's room and I wasn’t allowed to leave until I understood the math.
Ms.Rogers was my fourth grade math teacher that year; walking into her classroom she had a desk with blank paper and a pencil ready for me. She eventually taught me a new trick that made dividing numbers easy for me. Once I comprehended the material I realized why my dad took me all the way back to school. He wanted me to learn the concept of taking advantage of my education and truly “winning”. Ever since then, my dad had really instilled in me the importance of getting everything out of my education and taking advantage of all of my resources that are around me. I am beyond grateful for my dad, he has opened my eyes up at a young age of the level of importance education would soon have on me.
  He instilled the importance of work ethic and working for what you want; not having things handed to you. Now being a fourth way through my junior year I know when I walk across the stage in a little less than two years I will know that I have truly earned it. While saying I have done this and done that, I know I can do even more. Like I said earlier, school has always been easy for me by giving medium effort. I’d like to say I gave everything I had and tried my absolute hardest when it’s all over and done with. I will have gained knowledge and expanded the foundation of basic skills that I will need to use on a day to day basis.