Learning is a universal tool that can span daily life to being taught at school. Both can leave permanent roots on all interactions and decisions and in most cases always comes down to groups of individuals. In my life many people put in the effort to raise and educate me, fast forward, those ripples of effort continue to fuel the person I am today. The way I initially started to learn was through the wonderful world of books. Teachers played a heavy role in me learning how to read, but my earliest memory Is built on the experience I shared with my grandmother. Since I was young, and even to present day my grandmother has participated in church and in turn fueled my interest to read and learn about the world. On Sundays’ I would be placed in a class setting where we would be taught stories of the bible. This in combination with the reading we would do before bedtime, helped me to understand words at a young age. Genres like fantasy and mystery became my books of choice. This was key In elementary school where we would be bombarded with different reading material, and our teacher would require weekly book reports. The world seemed to stop when I came across books like “Animorphs”, the combination of fun sci-fi and comedy blended well with my personality and really pushed my creativity when writing stories and evaluating books.
One teacher that had the largest impact was named Mr. Brown, during my years in middle school. He primarily taught English and daily he would encourage us to research and write about different topics. “To kill a Mockingbird” and “A Street Car named Desire”, were two books that I never thought I would read. But having such unique characters that dealt with emotions that span from depression to love all while developing relationships, helped me to imagine a world with multiple layers. Because of these stories I was able to identify why a setting is such an important component, it can be a flexible variable that can be the precursor to a characters thought process all while being a plot device to start the story.
In the end I realize that we all may have people that teach us simply how to read and write but I think it takes special individuals in our lives to show us the significance of words. My grandmother was able to show me the powers if the words, it can move people and bring emotion in an instant. But what I learned from Mr. Brown Is the versatility of words, how can it can set up motives and bring us to specific location in an instant. These tools enable me and others to write more introspectively, all while telling a story.
