<h2>washu doesn' thave a supplemental essay, only teh commonapp one...a nd for most of my schools i think i really shine in my supp essays, but i'm afraid my common app essay is kind of generic. please read it over and tell me what you think!</h2>
<p>As I surveyed the uneven file of about a dozen seven- and eight-year olds that were now under my command, I pondered at the possibility of my task. Sure they were all supposed to be gifted children, but it had been difficult enough to get them to line up single file. As I looked at this crude and irregular linetwo boys were engaged in an animated conversation about the merits of two different types of Pokémon, another looked silly in a Yankee cap that was way too big, yet another was pointing down to his shoelaces which needed tyingit seemed that teaching a simple course in Robotics would be quite a daunting task. And, at first, it was. </p>
<p>I was a counselor working at Horizon, a day camp at the New York Institute of Technology for intellectually talented children. My specialty was robotics, which may sound fancy until you learn that we were using highly outdated kits controlled by Apple IIes. The children were obviously expecting to see R2-D2 and C-3PO when they entered the classroomthe looks on their faces spoke their disappointment when I told them there were no lasers and that the robots couldnt talk. While they were sophisticated children used to being around computers, they were accustomed to colorful, dynamic images with lots of activity and plenty of sound. The black and green BASIC, all text environment of the Apple IIe would never hold their attention spans. Furthermore, the first lesson plan, designed for older children, involved teaching the basics of the BASIC (ahem) coding language that controlled the robot, something that was clearly too much for 7 year olds to grasp.
The first class went horribly, and I was very frustrated. I shouted at the children, told them to sit down and pay attention, threatened to punish them, but that only made things worse. I was ready to give up and ask to be moved to dodgeball. Over lunch, I complained about the children to an adult counselor, who was a teacher during the year. She simply smiled, and advised me to think about how I was when I was a youngsternot that long ago, really. Put yourself in their shoes, she said. Once I did that, the solution became obvious. </p>
<p>The biggest problem was the way they were being taughtit would be impossible to hold their attentions in an informal, quasi-classroom setting, especially when they were learning about a topic that greatly excited them but was nowhere near as exciting as they thought. Furthermore, it wasnt fun enough. This was camp, not school, they didnt want to have to learn how to dimension a string variable or about for loops, they wanted to play with robots. They wanted to put some pieces together, hit a few buttons on a computer, and watch their creation come alive.</p>
<p>Now that I understood the nature of the problem, adapting my method was simple. To solve the problem of holding their attention, I changed from the old one teacher, many students structure of the class to one of many teachers, each teaching few students. I broke the class into small groups, and gave each one a CIT (counselor in training, or underlings as I like to call them) overseer. To make the class more fun, I shifted the focus of the course from programming the robots to building them. I whipped up some basic robot programs, for which campers could build robots. The success of my new plan was obvious immediatelythe class transformed from a scene of pandemonium to one of several groups of campers each diligently working on a robot that they hoped would be the best in the class.
In order to teach children, one must be able to learn from them. These kids may have had short and fickle attention spans, but that didnt mean they were stupid. In fact, children are very much like grownups, and working with them can be great practice for dealing with adults. My initial reaction to their uncooperativeness, understandably so, was to go directly against them, to try to use brute force to bend them to my will. I now know that this is not the proper way to be a leader. One must be able to change oneselffrom there, it is easy to subtly influence those who were previously obstinate, changing them without them even realizing what is happening. Fascist or totalitarian leaders that rule with an iron fist are rarely effectiveit is only the leader that gives the citizens what they want (or at least gives the impression that they are getting what they want) that is successful. The same holds true for any difficult situation or challenge someone is faced with. He cant expect to win if when faced with the slightest obstacle, he runs out with guns blazing. He can only be victorious if he can go around that obstacle, or over it, or under it, or maybe even through it, whatever the situation requires. I know that what I learned in taming those tiny beasts will be useful in whatever career I decide to, especially if I am in a position of leadershipthat I cannot try to beat a tough situation into submission, but I have to be flexible. I must the one to adapt.</p>