Growth In Mrs. Monroy's Spanish Classroom

Every day of junior year I woke up and dreaded the second I had to step into Mrs. Monroy’s Spanish class. She was the strict, no nonsense kind of teacher and she was cruel and cold-hearted when it came to grading. It only took half of a semester for my grade to start falling below a B. This caused for some “talks” with my parents and for growth, a term that that they heavily emphasized in those “talks”, to come to the forefront of my mind. When I think of growth, I do not just think of growing from eating too much ice cream, but also growing in ways like learning to play a new sport or, in this case, learning a new language. Trying to learn anything in Spanish seemed impossible, it has always been my worst subject and it also did not help that I had zero friends in the class and the best seat to take naps in. I’m not kidding, class was right after lunch, the room was the perfect temperature, and there was a bookshelf right next to my seat that felt like a Tempur-Pedic pillow whenever I …show more content…
Monroy assigned a big group project that could hopefully bring my grade up. However, as she was introducing the project she said “You may choose your own groups”. Now usually when a teacher says that I get excited, but not this time. The class was comprised of seniors who only took the class to fulfill their foreign language requirements, overachieving sophomores who somehow already learned half the material in middle school, and two other juniors I have never met before. I am not the most talkative person and stepping out of my comfort zone to meet new people does not sound like fun, especially when I have to introduce myself in Spanish. I knew that the only way I could get a good grade was if I put myself out there and met new people, so I instead decided to think of this as an opportunity for growth. Finally, after some awkward introductions, I found a spot in one of the