Marianne's story in her own words

I never thought about taking an honors class until my counselor mentioned honors geography. She explained to me how it worked the same as normal geography, just a little more advanced. I thought about this for a while and eventually I decided I was up for the challenge.

I have always been a good student but never a great student. I knew I could do better but all I needed was a little more motivation. My dad recognized this and made a deal with me early in the year saying if a I kept above 3.5 GPA I could get a car my junior year and every time I got a 4.0 he would move the date a month earlier. That was just the motivation I needed to make a goal for all A’s every term, but I never could quite reach it.

I thought the only solution to get all A’s was to work harder and get easier classes. Before the second semester I told my counselor I wanted to quit my only honors class, which was geography. I really did enjoy the class, the teacher, and the activities we did. It would get hard for me to keep up because the work was much more difficult and I felt the students in the class were so much better than I was because they were already 4.0 students.

After class one day near the end of second term I went up to Mr. Fawson to tell him I had switched out of his class for the next semester. He looked disappointed at this news. I explained how much I liked this class but I couldn’t reach my goal because it was difficult for me. Mr. Fawson said he knew I could do it and then added, “Go talk to your counselor one more time and tell her you changed your mind to get back into this class. I know you can do it.”

A couple days later I went into school early to switch back into Mr. Fawson’s class. After that, I went to tell him, he seemed very happy of my choice to get back in.

This term I worked harder than ever before. I did countless extra credit for every class, stayed before and after school to retake tests, and did all my assignments. When the reports cards came out I was very anxious. I ended up getting not only a 4.0 and all H’s. I was so proud of myself. After school that day I walked into Mr. Fawson’s classroom with the biggest smile on my face. I handed him my report card. He looked it over for a minute then he looked up and smiled, I could tell he was very proud also. He looked at me and said, “I knew you could do it, you made a goal and worked hard to achieve it.”

I’ll never forget this moment. He got me to believe in myself when I didn’t. Now for high school I plan on taking more advanced classes with the same goal of a 4.0.