It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

My worst educational experience was during 11th grade. I was in Spanish III with a teacher who most of the students in my school loved because she was always trying to come across as a "cool" teacher by telling us how to curse in Spanish or things like that. For some reason, she took an instant dislike to me, which eventually had an unpleasant effect on my Spanish grade throughout the year because were always clashing on things in the classroom. I began to dread going to Spanish class more and more, which was new for me because I'd always been very interested in learning the language. After a tedious year in her class, I decided to quit Spanish and didn't take it my senior year because of all the crap I'd had to put up with in her class.

On the contrary, my best educational experience happened during my senior year of high school. I was taking a semester-long history class on Eastern religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) and my teacher assigned us a project where we had to go to either a temple or meditation center and take a tour if possible or participate in whatever ceremony, service, or classes were taking place on two separate occasions. Our assignment was essentially participant observation for the purpose of writing about our experiences. I got to pair up with one of my friends and together we went to a Thai Buddhist temple in Silver Spring, MD and were shown around by one of the monks. We stayed and meditated with him and even got to see where they monks lived, ate, and worked. It was an experience I probably wouldn't have otherwise had and I learned a lot about a culture that was completely different from anything I had known before.