Everyone has their own role model or someone who has been a true teacher to them. Typically, these teachers are internet celebrities, fictional characters, or real-life adults. For me, my teacher was just a teenage girl that was in high school. At that time, I was just in the 6th grade in middle school, so how did a random high school student affect my life?

When I was starting the 6th grade, my family and I had just moved in to our new house. I was the “new kid” in school and I had no friends. During that period, I was a very awkward and shy girl that felt lost in a new environment. On the orientation day for middle school, there was an after-school club sign up for one-to-one tutoring with high school students. My parents signed me up, and I was reluctant to go to the first meeting. After a year in the club, I had bounced from tutor to tutor. I didn’t have a permanent high school student to teach me. Every time I met a tutor, I thought their tutoring would be permanent, but it always got disconnected somehow and they would stop coming to the program. I felt betrayed and lonely, and I longed for someone who cared or a true friend.

So another year passes and I was in the 7th grade. I decided to continue going to the high school tutoring program. I still had a temporary tutor at the beginning for a few weeks, and eventually that high school student gave up the program like the others, filling my heart with the usual sadness. One ordinary day at the club, I met a new high school student, just a normal teenage girl. She was very accepting of me, and she had an aura of shy warmth surrounding her. We became friends immediately and she was my tutor for my remaining two years in middle school. She didn’t seem like one who could be a significant leader due to her shy nature, but she had influenced me greatly.

Every meeting of the tutoring club, my tutor would be there waiting for me, so I became more enthusiastic about the club. Although this tutoring club was for learning school topics only, we often had chats about regular life things. Being a curious tutee, I asked her what it was like in high school. She gave me a lot of advice on high school and discussed how busy it was. Then I wondered how she could have the time to come to this after-school program, if her school was this busy. I wrote her letters and she wrote back. Notes of encouragement were filled within me, and I truly felt blessed. In a letter, I asked her why she came to the program to tutor and why she participated in so many volunteer events. She told me indirectly, that she was doing it to give back to her community, so others can be happy. My mind was opened. Usually people just volunteered for Beta Club hours, impatient with the activity in which they volunteered on. But this was different. She volunteered not for herself, but for others to benefit and be content. She cared about the well-being of people she barely knew. She had taught me that giving back is more important than one’s own wants. Doing one’s best to help is the greatest one can do for their community. Giving back just fills one up with satisfaction.

Eventually, two years pass and I enter high school as a freshman and my tutor was a senior. I often saw her in the hallways, but our connection with each other had broken off into separate ways. I still remember what she taught me, so I still use it to this day. Her teaching of giving back and helping at one’s best is an important thing to do in society. Because of her influence, I am now a tutor in that same one-to-one tutoring program and in every volunteer opportunity there is, I try my best to help others. I had changed from a very awkward girl who shied away from others to a less awkward girl who openly cares about giving back to others. My tutor had really been a true teacher for me and I will constantly be reminded and inspired by her indirect lessons to me.