The day was August 20th, 2003. My mother enrolled me for pre-school at Good Shepherd. As a three year old I remembered only a handle of things. The first day of school came upon me and I immediately rejected it. My mother had to strangle me out of the car while I was gripping a seatbelt holding onto what seemed like my life. When she managed to settle me down and hurry me into the class she became a paparazzi. Soon she left, and I scoped the room for my friends and foes. My eyes landed upon the teacher at the age of 30 smiling so hard at every student but when she glanced over to me the smiling concluded. Right then and there, I recognized this meant war. In a span of a month, I managed to fling a chair at my pregnant teacher, escape from the school multiple times and shove the classrooms television on the ground. I ended up getting expelled from the preschool, which in the end was the greatest thing that could have happened to me. The following year, I attended kindergarten at Saint Matthew Cathedral. In kindergarten I learned how to tie my shoes, read Go Dog Go, and the number system. I loved when the teachers read stories, books, or showed movies. As a child, imagination was a constant escape from school. Imagination made everything seem conceivable, with all the types of dreams one was able to conquer. Of course, I mostly cherished action and adventurous types of novels. What kid doesn’t love a bloody war scene? The next two years of my life I became very competitive.
Having a dream and living with passion is very important because I believe living without passion is like being dead. Someone like Tony Hawk could agree. Tony Hawk has been a professional skateboarder for over 24 years. However, he did not receive that title overnight; Tony got his first skateboard when he was only 9 years old. Since then, Tony worked extremely hard and put a lot of his focus on skateboarding. He did it because that was his Dream. Tony’s Dream was frowned upon by many of his teachers and adults alike. One of his teachers even told him that he “would never make it in the workplace if he didn’t follow directions exactly” (Hawk), but he never gave up his Dream. He kept working hard and eventually became a pro at the young age of 15.
The first day of 6th grade, I was shaking in fear, disliking everything about it. But after 3rd period, I realized it wasn’t too bad. The rest of the day went pretty smoothly and I was about to get one the bus when someone pushed me out of the way yelling, “Move it fatty!” When I got on the bus and found my assigned seat, I was frozen in fear to see that I was right in front of the kid that pushed me. His name was Luke. Luke was an 8th grader who was notorious for bullying the younger kids for his entertainment. “Looks like we got the fatty in front of us!” He yells to his friends as they crack up. I sit there ignoring them, feeling horrible. Luke leans forward and says, “Did you hear me, big boy?” I keep ignoring him as he continues to verbally
I remember the first day I walked into my kindergarten class, I clenched my mother’s hand with all my might to prevent her from letting go. The kids around me, whom I supposed were my classmates, had long let go of their mother’s had and were playing together, and even as a five year old, at that point I felt like an outsider. I pleaded my mom to not leave but my attempts failed as I found myself alone yet surrounded by complete strangers. As I stood in the center of the room while pushing back my tears and eyeing my mother make her way out the door, I heard the teacher call my name. I timidly walked towards the spot on the yellow carpet she was signaling at for me to sit on. I heard Mrs. Ross’s soothing voice but no matter how much I concentrated
I grew up in a world full of fairy tales and Disney characters. My parents who were trying to find a way to distract my 5 years old mind turn on the tv, and there I was admittedly taken on a journey to a magical place where I was safe in the knowledge that every ending is “happy-ever-after.”(this is an extended metaphor where I compare Disney to the real world I used this to show the reader how I thought the world was as happy and perfect as Disney and television makes them out to be). I soon came to the realization that the world is not so happy after all.
While my love for reading sprouted, I soon became obsessed with writing. My passion for reading only helped my writing skills to prosper. In fifth grade, I had a teacher who very well understood that reading and writing were important. Every day, we had a half an hour to write about whatever we wanted. Boy, my imagination ran wild. I often wrote fiction stories. My favorite part was when the teacher allowed us to share our stories with the whole class at the end of the week. This one activity really sparked the beginning of my love for writing.
Children’s literature is an effective teaching tool for children but also a way for children to escape their daily lives through fantasy. Didactic material can be used to teach life lessons, manners and morals where subversive and fantasy genres can allow children to release from daily expectations and allows an outlet for their large imaginations.
Growing up, I had always loved reading; it intrigued me and stimulated me in ways the typical preschool and Kindergarten lessons couldn’t. I’d come home from a long day of coloring shapes, wrists sore from fiercely
Reading was the new outlet for my imagination and the stories I read fascinated me. They weren’t too unlike the scripts of computer games or the own stories I came up with on my own, but books actually had the action and emotional aspects written out. And again, while my peers were reading things about growing up, things that had morals and would teach valuable lessons (I remember one book about a shoplifter who had to do community service at an animal shelter), I read real fiction: Jurassic Park, Dragonriders of Pern, Lord of the Rings… Stuff of fantasy and science-fiction that let my mind stray from reality. Stuff that kept my imagination alive while I was being forced to learn multiplication and the names of countries. Of course, my teachers encouraged me to keep reading, as long as I wasn’t doing the reading in the middle of their lectures. But it wasn’t because of their influence, however, that kept me interested in books. It was because I loved it. It put pictures into my head and made me think. So I kept reading. But even then I knew reading wasn’t enough… Yes, the stories were fascinating, but they weren’t what I wanted. Back then I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but as middle school came to a close, I found it.
Books were a major part of my youth. I was not only a very creative child, but I was also very social. I would constantly be running around our neighborhood in our hometown of Wilmington, Delaware looking for someone to play with. Wilmington was a suburban fantasy land. I vaguely remember running around my
I chose to read and comment on Barbara Kiefer’s “Envisioning Experience: The Potential of Picture Books.” Kiefer’s main point in writing this essay was to get the message across that children enjoy picture books that allow them to identify and make connections with the characters or the plots, and that while reading and analyzing the pictures, they gain a better sense of aesthetics and how to interpret them.
Reading develops a person’s creativity. Unlike movies where everything is determined by the producer, writer and director, books allow students to create in their minds how a particular character looks like or imagine how a scene plays out.
As a child, my interests were more focused on reading than writing. In elementary school I fell in love with books. Initially I read simple children’s books, much like everybody else in my class, but it did not take long for my passion to drive me to read more difficult writings. Fiction books quickly became a replacement for any childhood toys. Instead of blocks or stuffed animals I would ask my parents for books. Since they were aimed at young readers, they tended to be short. I found myself going through them within days, and then soon several hours. Towards the end of elementary school I was reading series like Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. I was captivated, and reading truly opened up a whole new world for me.
As I take a look back on my life, I realize how great it has truly been. I had an absolutely amazing childhood and I am beyond blessed for it. I grew up in a home with two loving parents that have been with me through it all and now of days that is something to be truly thankful for. My parents taught me to strive to be anything that I wanted and that I could be anything that I set my mind to. These dreams changed throughout my life as I grew older and as I grew into the person that I am today.
I stepped onto the school campus and could just see the constant flow of high school students wandering and walking to say ‘hi’ to their friends. This was very new to me since I was homeschooled all my life. I had no idea what it was like to be bullied or go to high school parties or make NEW friends. So I decided to find my first class which was world history. I found it eventually, luckily before the bell rang too. I couldn’t believe
From an early age I loved to read. At just two years old I would beg my mother to enroll me into school. I watched as my older sister meticulously picked out her outfit each night in preparation for the next school day. At such a young age I somehow knew that this thing called “school” was the answer to something spectacular. My home was chaotic and reading became an escape and helped distract me from the unpleasant family dynamic.