When I first met Mr. Porter, I thought he was the weirdest man I had ever met. He had a bandanna on, a big long beard, was playing music off of a record player, had weird items all around the room, and he still used chalk to write on a chalkboard. I could tell he was nervous because he was shaking and laughing at his own jokes. He was new at North East Middle School, so it made sense that he was nervous. Then, the next day he looked completely different. His beard was completely shaved off, he had on really nice clothes, no bandanna, and he wasn’t playing music. It was only the second day of the eighth grade and everyone was talking about him.


After a while, I started getting bad grades in his class, and I was playing the fool too. He took me to a “lunch detention”. While we were at lunch, he said I wasn’t trying hard enough and gave me back a two-page essay I had written. I felt like I had tried and that it was pretty good! So I thought to myself, “he’s going to be that one teacher”. So I argued with him, knowing that in the end the student never wins… as I learned again this time. He ended up writing me up and I had to go down to the office. That’s when I was for sure like, “this guy has no idea what he is doing.”


As I was trying to keep up with my grades and my behavior, we learned that Mr. Porter was Buddhist. I really didn’t care, but it did explain the music, the bandanna, the beard, and his strange items. I started to let go of my opinion that he was weird. I still thought he had something against me though, and only me, because I was usually the only one who got written up and bad grades even though I thought they were good. I started working on my writing skills; I wanted to get better. I wanted to make Mr. Porter say “good job” or “nice work”.


One day he told me if I keep working how I’m working and acting the way I’m acting, I wasn’t going to get too far in my life. From that day forth, I said to myself that I would come back and prove to him that I did get somewhere in my life. It gave me even more motivation to get better grades and act a little bit better in each class. Since I talked a lot, I moved my seat to get away from my friends, which made him smile in a weird way. It made me feel better, because I knew I was making the right choice, and it would help me with my grades.


At the end of the year, I wrote an essay that I worked really hard on. I wrote the essay, and it was two FULL pages long of good grammar, spell check, and a good outline for the essay. I got the essay back after waiting anxiously. I got a 96%. He said to me “very great work, Dylan; I knew you could do it if you tried.” This is why I nominated my eighth grade English teacher; he completely changed my life on how I see things and how hard I really worked. He’s my choice for Educator of the Year.