A Visit To A School Visit

Who knew that this foreign land would be where a girl, sixteen years of age, would be living, maybe, for the rest of her life. It had always been her dream to live in a house where it almost looks like a palace compared to the houses back in her motherland. It had always been her dream to stroll the streets of an unfamiliar place in luck to quench the burning thirst of adventure within her. She loves the thought of adventure. She loves the thought of exploring a new world where many are unfamiliar to her. To see a world where there are no dust rising from the filthy grounds like of those of her former neighborhood. To see a world where the roads are as clean and smooth as a polished obsidian. To see a world where the trees are as green as a peridot.

As I was 13 I joined the grade of year 8. When I arrived at the school and I was baffled the sheer size of the thing. The schools in Sudan were made of cheap flimsy wood just waiting to break apart. Here was like a modern mansion, all including vibrant colours and clean pristine edges. I felt that today was going to be a good day; my my how I was wrong.

Raising money for the school proved to be as challenging as everything else. They had there loyal ones like Stephen Lewis Foundation grant, The generous Kampala supporters, the Global Fund for Children, and Indiana Friends of Nyaka raising money each

The boy was amazed by this and decided to venture further in to explore the strange place. It was completely empty, no men rushing to work and no children playing outside. However, the boy noticed how it was oddly well maintained. As he walked down what must have been the main street, the buildings to his left and right were so clean from outside they looked as though they had been built just before he had arrived. There was a church towards the end of the village whose stained glass windows were so stunning and well maintained that someone passing by may have believed these were a portal to another world rather than just incredible artwork. The sun had begun to set and James decided it was time to find somewhere to sleep for the night and he could continue his exploring the following day, he walked up to the next building on his left and tried to open the door. To his surprise, it wasn 't locked. He went inside and found a bed, no sooner had his head hit the pillow he had fallen asleep and dreamt of what his adventure would bring him the following day.

As one enters the building, you can see everyone parts and takes their own route depending on which of the three schools they attend or work for. As soon as you walk on, you see posters and reminders of different activities posted on the school doors. The halls are full of bulletin boards that introduce you

I was fortunate that I had parents who cared, possessed the financial wherewithal, and understanding of how to help me. This experience is why I am in education today. I realize that I was privileged; too many youth slip through the cracks and fail to reach their potential and this has nothing to do with their parents not caring. This is unacceptable, and I am working towards ameliorating this travesty. While I am uncertain whether it will be a rural, urban, parochial, or charter school, the school I will lead will be one that works to break the cycle of poverty by specializing in helping students from low socioeconomic households make greater than yearly expected academic gains. As shown by examples in Figure One, there are a diversity of these schools located throughout our nation. They all establish high expectations for their students, work on forming relationship with the students and family beyond

There is a new student in our class. His name is Jean- Paul and he is French. He started at our school two weeks ago. He does not speak much Norwegian, but he will learn fast. He knows a lot about our country, because he has been here many times before. There are some girls in our class that are crazy about him, and that is no wonder at all! Jean-Paul is tall, dark haired and good looking.

We were lead into a small room brightly lined with purple walls and fluffy chairs. It was every girl's dream. The teacher lined

The school was indeed a sight to behold. It was an old and rotting, wooden building in the shape of an L with two floors. Each class painted in the same colors of what appeared to be pastel yellow and some sort of a sienna brown, or what have been

There I was in the airport of a country that I had only ever dreamed about going to with my heart pounding so loud I thought the person down the corridor would be able to hear it. The first step outside of the terminal made my eyes brighten as I gazed out at the country that I would be calling home for 4 weeks. We said goodbye to our school group and hello to our new families. This was the first time that I had been out of my comfort zone, to this extend anyway, so it was extremely daunting and all I could remember thinking was "I hope that they like me!" My best friend and I had been allocated to the same host family so it was a bit of relief knowing I had someone there with me. Piling into the car it finally hit me that the next few weeks were going to test my abilities and comfort zone but also I was going to experience one of the oldest cultures. It was a new adventure that I was going to be able to experience with not only myself but my closest friend. Looking out of the car window on our journey back to their home, my eyes darted around off the buildings, to the people and the traffic. It was like something I had never seen before; there were cars zooming in every direction and the buildings were breath-taking. This city was nothing like I imagined, in fact it was better than I could have dreamed. My grin stretched from ear to ear and I struggled to take in everything that this city had to offer. If there was one reason why I took this trip, it was to get a better

Whilst the building was a source of identity for the school’s perpetuity the building fabric was increasingly struggling to reconcile the changing demands and needs of the school. This was compounded by an increasing requirement for public access. This was exemplified by the fact the access to one of the key rooms, the library, was prohibited in order to safeguard its interior.

In September, students from seventh grade through twelfth grade began to attend classes at the brand new school. There was a real Industrial Arts instruction area. Students were able to work on real projects instead of string art. There was a Home Economics room instead of a mobile home. There were laboratories and a planetarium. There were enough classrooms so that every teacher had his or her own classroom. The library was used only as a library and no longer had to be used as a classroom. The nurses’ office was no longer in the girls’ locker room. There was a cafeteria. Students no longer roamed the

After I was allowed in, I signed in to the computer system as a guest and headed to the classroom I would be observing in. On my way to the classroom, I couldn’t help but notice that not much about the building had changed. As I walked downstairs to Ms. Gerke’s classroom, I even noticed that my kindergarten teacher still worked there in the same exact classroom; I was overwhelmed with nostalgia. In the distance I could hear the chatter of students in classrooms and piano music and singing in the music room.

The road towards the school is beautiful during the summer. As you enter, you see green everywhere; an awesome feeling of nature approaches your heart as the fresh air rushes inside your nose and you begin to liberate your lungs. The street takes you on a small happy ride with three sharp curves to give you a small tour of the beautiful collection of trees that this school’s delightful “front yard” holds to finally deliver you inside this secluded paradise of education. The clean asphalt road in the middle of the forest gives you security that you are safe and you are not entering some sort of “hunting zone.” It is amazing to know you are in a relaxing fresh forest to aid you in your focused studies, and as if it wasn’t enough, a gorgeous lake positions itself next to the college with a sleek trail around the lake where students walk to get from building to building; as they walk, fishes inside the lake swim with glory enjoying the divine nature around this college.

I finally stepped into my new school, in an unfamiliar town. I had just turned seven years old and I was unsure about what life is going to be like from there on out. Loaded down with pencils, paper, and pages one to one hundred of the supplies from the Crayola catalog, I wandered into the towering brown building and down the pale blue halls to find what would be my classroom for the next nine months. I stumbled upon the room labeled 2E to find a score of other children talking about their summer adventures and where they went on vacation. I had nothing to discuss with them. My summer was spent stooped on the curb, watching my brother and mother unload a UHaul truck. As I stood there, eyes the size of saucers, a petite young teacher walked