- Posts: 1
- Joined: Jan 04, 2016
- Mon Jan 04, 2016 2:12 pm
#21468
Personal Statement
One day during free read in Mrs. Mooney's fourth grade class, my eye caught a glossy green cover on the top shelf of the cabinet, which depicted our sixteenth president with one finger extended before him, as if to say something very important. I quickly became excited, shuffling past the kids reading Captain Underpants and Goosebumps in a hurry as if someone was bound to snatch it up. We had just done our unit on Abraham Lincoln, and I was obsessed. No other historical figure I had encountered in my short ten years was so clearly noble, willing to undergo a brutal confrontation for the sake of morality. His tragic and untimely murder at the hands of John Wilkes Booth only heightened the drama of his persona; he was willing to risk it all to do the right thing. He was my hero, my Superman in a stovepipe hat.
When I got closer, I was able to make out the title on the cover: The Gettysburg Address. Of course, at that point, I had no clue what this meant. I eagerly opened the book and began “Four Score and Seven Years Ago” and was forced to stop. What does that mean? I walked up to Mrs. Mooney and plopped the book in front of her. She explained, with a beaming smile, that a score was twenty years and that, in the context of the speech, eighty seven years prior was 1776, when our nation was founded. I found this enthralling; what a unique way to phrase it. For the entire week, I spent all my reading periods poring over the Gettysburg address. It was so hopeful yet tragic, strong yet surrendering. Little did I know that this speech was given to thousands of corpses scattered across the field, following the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil.
As the days turned to weeks, I became so immersed in the book that I just decided to memorize it. My exact motivation in pursuing this is hazy, but I think I wanted to get as close as I possibly could to the spirit of Lincoln- such was my obsession. Mrs. Mooney quickly took heed, and asked if I wanted to present the speech before the class. Looking back, I do not know how I mustered the courage to get up in front of the class, toting the signature stovepipe hat. Of course, as many awkward childhood stories go, my mind went blank the second I stood up from my desk. Gone was the measured pace of Lincoln's grizzled voice flowing ceaselessly through my head, replaced by my acute awareness of the silence in the room. Finally, after several minutes of fumbling through lines, I managed to close out the speech and return to my desk.
For some time after, I was angry at myself for going up there. I thought myself stupid and arrogant with that hat and haughty sense of intellectualism. But I could not have been more wrong. In the summer of 2014, I worked for AmeriCorps at a National Monument in Montana called Pompeys Pillar, a site famous for the 1806 signature of Captain William Clark. Working as a historical curriculum writer for kids, the Monument's management pushed me to highlight Clark's legacy and heroism, but I believed there was a far greater story to be told. Long before Pompeys Pillar was visited by William Clark, Native Americans had occupied the land. The Pillar has scrawled on it hundreds of vermilion-powdered Native American petroglyphs, most of which are concealed from the view of the average visitor. I learned from a Native American Park Ranger that by the time the railroad had been built in the late 19th century, the buffalo had already been nearly hunted to extinction in the region- a far cry from the thousands of buffalo described by the Lewis and Clark journals written less than one hundred years prior. They filled entire railroad cars with tongues, leaving the corpses to rot in the fields. It upset me that these sentiments were not being conveyed to the general populace visiting the site, so I decided to write my Honors Thesis based on the historiography of Lewis and Clark, and how it is biased toward the white perspective.
Just as the Gettysburg address inspired hope in our battered countrymen in 1863, it inspired me to push myself beyond my perceived capabilities as a meek ten year old, and continues to inspire me today. In Lincoln, I have learned to be unafraid to be inquisitive, to work hard, and to proudly display my love for learning. I am grateful for what my ten year old self did that day.
One day during free read in Mrs. Mooney's fourth grade class, my eye caught a glossy green cover on the top shelf of the cabinet, which depicted our sixteenth president with one finger extended before him, as if to say something very important. I quickly became excited, shuffling past the kids reading Captain Underpants and Goosebumps in a hurry as if someone was bound to snatch it up. We had just done our unit on Abraham Lincoln, and I was obsessed. No other historical figure I had encountered in my short ten years was so clearly noble, willing to undergo a brutal confrontation for the sake of morality. His tragic and untimely murder at the hands of John Wilkes Booth only heightened the drama of his persona; he was willing to risk it all to do the right thing. He was my hero, my Superman in a stovepipe hat.
When I got closer, I was able to make out the title on the cover: The Gettysburg Address. Of course, at that point, I had no clue what this meant. I eagerly opened the book and began “Four Score and Seven Years Ago” and was forced to stop. What does that mean? I walked up to Mrs. Mooney and plopped the book in front of her. She explained, with a beaming smile, that a score was twenty years and that, in the context of the speech, eighty seven years prior was 1776, when our nation was founded. I found this enthralling; what a unique way to phrase it. For the entire week, I spent all my reading periods poring over the Gettysburg address. It was so hopeful yet tragic, strong yet surrendering. Little did I know that this speech was given to thousands of corpses scattered across the field, following the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil.
As the days turned to weeks, I became so immersed in the book that I just decided to memorize it. My exact motivation in pursuing this is hazy, but I think I wanted to get as close as I possibly could to the spirit of Lincoln- such was my obsession. Mrs. Mooney quickly took heed, and asked if I wanted to present the speech before the class. Looking back, I do not know how I mustered the courage to get up in front of the class, toting the signature stovepipe hat. Of course, as many awkward childhood stories go, my mind went blank the second I stood up from my desk. Gone was the measured pace of Lincoln's grizzled voice flowing ceaselessly through my head, replaced by my acute awareness of the silence in the room. Finally, after several minutes of fumbling through lines, I managed to close out the speech and return to my desk.
For some time after, I was angry at myself for going up there. I thought myself stupid and arrogant with that hat and haughty sense of intellectualism. But I could not have been more wrong. In the summer of 2014, I worked for AmeriCorps at a National Monument in Montana called Pompeys Pillar, a site famous for the 1806 signature of Captain William Clark. Working as a historical curriculum writer for kids, the Monument's management pushed me to highlight Clark's legacy and heroism, but I believed there was a far greater story to be told. Long before Pompeys Pillar was visited by William Clark, Native Americans had occupied the land. The Pillar has scrawled on it hundreds of vermilion-powdered Native American petroglyphs, most of which are concealed from the view of the average visitor. I learned from a Native American Park Ranger that by the time the railroad had been built in the late 19th century, the buffalo had already been nearly hunted to extinction in the region- a far cry from the thousands of buffalo described by the Lewis and Clark journals written less than one hundred years prior. They filled entire railroad cars with tongues, leaving the corpses to rot in the fields. It upset me that these sentiments were not being conveyed to the general populace visiting the site, so I decided to write my Honors Thesis based on the historiography of Lewis and Clark, and how it is biased toward the white perspective.
Just as the Gettysburg address inspired hope in our battered countrymen in 1863, it inspired me to push myself beyond my perceived capabilities as a meek ten year old, and continues to inspire me today. In Lincoln, I have learned to be unafraid to be inquisitive, to work hard, and to proudly display my love for learning. I am grateful for what my ten year old self did that day.
