Back to School Essay Contest Winner Heather W. - 9th Grade

The Most Important Lesson I Learned in School

by Heather W.

There it was again, in the yearbook for the 3rd year in a row, “Most Likely To Succeed.” I have never really liked that phrase, but each year in school as I learn more things, I like that phrase even less. The most important lesson I have learned is that while my peers might be able to cast their vote as to whether or not I succeed is up to me, not them.

Being a former foster child is a success story in itself. Being moved around from house to house like a cardboard box isn’t how most kids live their life. Having my afternoons filled with appointments with social workers, case workers, therapists and counselors isn’t exactly the first thing on my list after a hard day at school, being put in a self-contained room with other emotionally disturbed kids only gives me a new name around the campus. The name unfortunately isn’t anything related to the word “SUCCESSFUL.”

Most kids around campus have no idea who I am. I mean, who I really am. My name is never going to be found under “those phrases” – you know, the ones that the popular kids look at first when the yearbook is issued at the end of the year. The same pages that other kids quickly skip over to avoid not seeing their name. After all, who wouldn’t want to see their face next to the bold letters that say, “MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED?

But the success of a person doesn’t begin or end with a picture and a phrase. It begins with the person attached to the face and what they are able to do for others. At least, in my opinion – that is when a person really succeeds, even a person like me.

You see, after my adoption in 5th grade, my mom decided that my afternoons were going to a lot different. Therapy was still recommended by my doctor and social workers, but I waned to stop. I wanted to be a normal kid. So my mom and I came up with a plan. The plan was that I would keep a journal of my thoughts, experiences, and feelings and share them with my mom every couple of weeks. The plan also included lots of free time, after school activities with kids my own age, and dance class—which I always wanted to take but never had the time because of all those appointments.

When a couple of months had passed by my mom started to notice a pattern about my writing. I had kind of made my thoughts into book form not even knowing it. My mom and I worked on dividing them into little chapters and started labeling and editing them. Then I came up with the idea that my books might be able to help another foster child because they could be feeling the same way that I had or have the same questions that I once had while in foster care.

I’ve written 12 booklets so far and I pass them out to foster children and social workers across the country. Some of the titles are, Why Do I Have to Move Again, Under One Roof, What is a Social Worker, and Heather’s Hurts. I hope when a foster child reads one that they will feel that they are not alone and that other kids have gone through the same system.

I also hope when an adult reads them that they have a better understanding of why many foster kids have the issues they have and how some of those issues could disappear by just giving them a real home to grow up in with a family who cares about them, their dreams and their safety.

Two years ago, I spoke at a congressional briefing on behalf of foster children. I discussed the need for foster children to have lawyers. I questioned many senators about their states and why some of them have lawyers for the kids in custody and others don’t. I even helped in passing out a national report card on several aspects of foster care. Unfortunately, only 5 states received an “A.” Mine was not one of them.

For my advocacy work, I was awarded the Angel in Adoption congressional Award. The only way to be nominated for this award is by a member of congress. I am the only child in history to have received this special honor. But the advocacy is not for awards, it is to give a voice to the kids who need it the most; the kids who have no families to speak on their behalf. The kids whose life, like mine, could completely change if someone would just consider them as “Most Likely To Succeed.”

While the other kids at school may never know abut my successes, I am okay with that. You see, after the school year is over, I get out my mom’s colored markers and make my own fancy box around my face and then write the word “Succeeding!” I skip over the words “most Likely To.” After all, feeling and being successful is up to me—not anyone else. That is the most important lesson I have learned in school.

Heather W.
9th Grade