Working Hard

NBA star Roger Mason, Jr. of the San Antonio Spurs has "adopted" E.L. Haynes' 7th Grade! The Roger Mason Jr. partnership kicked off in August with a special movie night for 50 E.L. Haynes’ fourth – seventh grade students who were selected to attend on the basis of their outstanding essays about why hard work is important. Below are some of the essays they wrote.

Why Working Hard Is Important
Zahra A. Wright, Fifth Grade

Working hard is important to me because when you work hard you can achieve special goals that you have never accomplished before. If "work hard" wasn't one of E.L. Haynes main rules, I would recommend it to be.

Working hard is also important because working hard is great for your education. For example Thomas Edison didn't have a great education, but he did work hard and successfully invented the light bulb.

Another very successful person is my great grandmother. (Gwendolyn Mastin) She was born 1925 on a farm in Mississippi. Since her mom died when she was 2 and her grandparents died, she lived with her aunt. It wag very hard in her time to achieve an education (because she was black), but she graduated from high school. After that my great grandma had 3 jobs until her 60's and didn't retire until ten years later. That proves my great grandmother had spunk and worked very hard.

All teachers are very strict about working hard because one day all of the E.L. Haynes students will go to college. We will work hard to follow our hopes and dreams.

Roger Mason worked hard and so will I.

Why is Working Hard Important?
Jacqueline Marroquin, Sixth Grade

I think working hard is important for many reasons. The first reason is so that you can go to college. You can then get a degree and a good job.

One person that I know that works hard is my dad. He gets up very early because he owns two restaurants. My dad works hard because he wants a good family and he wants to give us food and clothes and someday I am going to work hard like my dad.

Ms. Helm is another person who works hard. Ms. Helm works hard because she wants the best for us. She wants us to learn and be good at school.

I am going to work hard so that one day I can be a dance teacher, work at the restaurant and be a chef.

And I think that what Mr. Mason is doing is very nice and I want to say thank you so much.

Working Hard
Josiah Smith, Fourth Grade

My cousin Ben is a hard worker. When he was a kid he did lots of chores and took good care of his pets. He was a Boy Scout and became an Eagle Scout. After that he was a lifeguard and was on a gymnastics squad team. In high school he made very good grades and worked hard with his church.

Now he is in Afghanistan. Ben helps to make sure the soldiers have the equipment they need to fight in the war. He volunteered to go to Iraq right after graduation. In college he trained very hard to be a good soldier. We pray his hard work will keep him safe.

Working Hard
George A. Martin, Sixth Grade

One person I know has worked very hard to get to where she is today. That woman is my Grandmother. She worked at Galludet University for 30 years, from 1971 all the way to 2001. This was very hard for her because people treated women badly back then. She and my grandpa both got arrested several times for protesting against segregation. She started out as a professor, and had to learn how to "speak" sign language for those students who are deaf. After being an English Professor for several years, she became a Dean. She was very respected as a Dean. At Galludet, you had to get a Dell laptop, and my Grandma only likes to use Macs. Then, after a few years, the President of Galludet asked my Grandma to be his private assistant. She said on one condition: if she could use a Mac computer. He agreed, and she got promoted to the highest possible rank, next to the President. When he went to meetings, she would come, with her new Mac. Whenever he announced to a very large audience, she would be by his side on the stage. Then, in 2001, she was about 60 years old, and had to retire. She now lives with her husband in their own, quiet little house here in Washington, D.C. She worked at Galludet for so long that she still gets paid for working there. I am very proud of my Grandma and how hard she worked. She is a very good example of why "Work Hard" in the E.L. Haynes motto is very important. And now I bring my essay to its conclusion.

Working Hard Pays Off
Sara Bollag, Fifth Grade

I always wanted to be in a gymnastics performance. When I started doing gymnastics two years ago I thought it would be easy. Very quickly I found out that I have to practice a lot if I want to achieve something. Also I couldn't perform right away.

I had to practice every day even if I didn't want to. Sometimes I didn't want to go to my classes because sometimes it was hard or I just didn't feel like going.

Then I remembered my goal. I even quit for a while because it was so frustrating. I remembered how I always wanted to perform. I knew that if I was still going to perform I had to work hard.

So I went back to doing gymnastics and a half a year later I got to perform. I wasn't the best on my team but I knew that I worked hard and I was proud of myself. I found that working hard really does pay off.

Why Working Hard is Important
Tinaeya Culbreth, Seventh Grade

Working hard is important because you need to get to college. The time when I worked hard is when i won 1st place in the spelling bee. I worked on spelling words every night until 10 pm. On the day of the spelling bee, I was nervous the whole day. When I saw my mom in the audience, I stopped being nervous. It got down to the last two people and Mya missed a letter in her word, and I won. My teachers awarded me with a big trophy and three gift cards to Target, Best Buy, and Cheesecake Factory.

Work Hard
Jabarey Wells

Working hard is very important. If people like Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, and Barack Obama just slacked off and did nothing, the world wouldn't be where it is today. I would first like to thank Roger Mason for working hard and adopting our school. He, like so many others, inspire me to work hard and do something great with my life. He shows me that with hard work, I can be or do anything I want.

I would also like to say that working hard doesn't just get you the job you want, it also gets you respect and friendship and knowledge and so many other important things that sometime I wonder, "What is the point of slacking and laziness?"

Working hard and not giving up also shows that people can trust and rely on you to get the job done, anything from finishing an essay to guiding the country in times of economic crisis, it shows that you have the guts and will take upon any challenge. That is why working hard is important.

The Working Hard with Roger Mason Jr. Blog

As part of this ongoing partnership, students will be blogging with Roger Mason Jr. on the Working Hard with Roger Mason Jr. blog at http://workinghardwithrogermasonjr.blogspot.com/.

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