The Stronger The Flame

I think that the best example of my interest in an educational area was most recently with the opportunity to participate in the Academic Decathlon Competition with the team although I was not in the class. I was invited to compete for the team in the “varsity” category. I competed in 9 events placing in three of them. Winning gold in the “public speech” event and bringing home two bronze medals in the “interview” competition and the “economics” test. My interest was sparked because it gave me an opportunity to showcase my public speaking and interview strengths as well as give me a chance to have an educational experience in a closed setting that was not at my own high school in a classroom of twenty five other students.

The reason I took such a liking to the Academic Decathlon competition because it gave me an opportunity to showcase my skills in particular areas and it gave me the confidence to actually believe in myself. I spent most of my time for the later part of February and beginning of March before the competition writing my speech and trying to perfect it in every way possible so that I could prove to myself, my teammates, my teachers, and others around us that we could do it. As a result of working at my speech inside and outside of school I helped my team qualify for the Academic Decathlon National Competition in Minnesota at the end of April. This opportunity to help showcase our schools talents in these testing areas and to also help myself showcase my personal knack for public speaking in front of other teams from around the country as well as the judges.

The W.B. Yeats quote, ” Education is not the  filling of a pail, but rather the lighting of a fire.” is a very interesting one to me personally. I believe that W.B. is right on with the quote because a pail can be filled to a certain point, but eventually it is over-run and overflows. A student with a real passion and drive for a particular event or subject is not going to start rejecting information, but would rather encourage it to keep coming like the fire. As a fire burns down and is constantly kept going as long as you add wood to it. As long as you add the drive and interest into your education you can always keep going farther and learning even more. The passion and interest represents the wood being added to it and the flame is the success through the learning that is happening. The flame can be large at times and smaller at other times, but the flame takes a long time to completely wither away. Even when the visible flame is not thriving the coals keep the fire hot for a long time after the flame is not there. That is our interest for a subject and even after we have stopped learning or wanting to learn the interest does not die until a while after that. You can always restock and restart your fire just like you can in your learning.

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