As a child, I was smelling sharpies constantly. Mrs. Jean, the old lady who ran the in-home daycare I attended, would prepare alphabet and word activities for us by outlining the thin lines with black sharpie, making the stench permeate through her dining room and kitchen. I would gather up my papers and see what I was to learn that day, taking my pencil and eagerly tracing it along the sharpie-dotted lines that would soon form the word ‘cat’. I would fly through those sharpie-covered papers and approach Mrs. Jean with pleas for bigger words.

The other day I sat down in my math class, dug through my pencil bag, and groaned when I realized I had left my last pencil at home. I visualize it sitting on my bedside table after a long night of homework, the eraser barely visible over its plastic end. I begrudgingly turn to my desk neighbor and ask if she could spare me one, and she hands me a dulled, wooden pencil. I silently sigh to myself, but say thank you, because this is probably the only pencil I’d be using this week.

At the age of two I begged my mom to put me into pre-K. With a smile tugging on the corners of her mouth, she told me I was too young and would have to wait a couple of years. I stared at her with conviction and attempted to convince her that I was older (I failed miserably, by the way). Then, after finally admitted that I was, indeed, only two, I slumped back in my car seat.

This morning, my mother turned on my bedroom light with a huff after telling me for the third time to “get out of bed! We have to leave in ten minutes!” I mimic her huff back at her, throw off my covers, and trudge to the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee so I can slam it down in the car.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have a love for learning. The eagerness to seek knowledge still burns within me. The flame just isn’t as bright as it was when I was a young child. My fear of failure has thrown sand and water on it, and the stress of work has tried to stamp it out with heavy textbooks. The little fire has almost sputtered out as I’ve climbed through school grade by grade, but my mom has always been there to stoke it when I didn’t have the energy to. My brilliant mother, who is a teacher herself, is the one who instilled in me the importance of learning. I was always a curious child, but she encouraged me by placing books in my hands and showing me what a joy it is to discover.

I believe that all children are born curious and eager to learn, but many lose that joy when the stress of not rising to expectations--of parents, teachers, or even self-inflicted-- enters their school life.

To many students, the point of school is to make straight A’s. They memorize and drill until their brains are numb. They don’t stop and try to understand what is actually being taught; honestly, they can’t afford to. Understanding a concept doesn’t really matter when you get a bad grade. Except, a “bad” grade is an average grade. Students think--and are pushed by their parents or by themselves--that if they are anything less than the best, then they aren’t good enough. Children are rarely allowed to just be. They must be the best, and be a winner, be the valedictorian. They never really taught the importance of being content with what they have and what they do; kids are constantly being pushed for more, so it’s eventually all they know.

The true purpose of school is not to make good grades, but to learn about the world and stoke the fire of curiosity. Although that purpose is no longer really accepted in society today, I believe that it is an integral piece in a student’s mindset of learning. Although she didn’t realize it then, Mrs. Jean taught me that I should always be open to new challenges and accept new opportunities to grow as a student. All she did was trace the word “cat” for me in sharpie.