My Experience In My School

As we pulled up to the massive elementary school building, I begged my mom to let me stay home from school, just once. As usual, she said no. Realizing my attempt to get out of school was futile, I shouldered my backpack, swung open the door, and trudged over to the front door. I would rather be anywhere else than here. For the majority of my life, I attended public schools. It wasn’t rare for me to fail a test or even a whole class. It was because of these failures that I would get even more demotivated and threw away the idea of working hard or completing quality work altogether.

I walked down the hallways, I was quiet and I kept to myself. I desperately needed something my school seemed to lack- personal space. How bizarre of me to dislike being touched by the skin of another student, who were all practically strangers that would come by in waves, or to get hit by a backpack that was poorly resting on some distraught shoulder. Students were quickly filling the hallways, a mob beginning to tear down the walls, making it difficult to see beyond my own two feet. You see, I've come to the conclusion that no matter how quickly I race out of class at the sound of the bell, I always will get caught in the crowd. It's inevitable. Everyone is always packing themselves into the halls, with no consideration for others, leaving little to no space to get by.

I walk into a new place where I have never been before trying to find where i’m going next. I struggle to look for my friends in a commons area full of people. It doesn't help that my eyesight is very poor. I start walking straight into the commons in hopes to find someone. I finally find a group full of familiar people who had graduated two years ago from the school I went to. I go up to them and ask them where my classes are, if i have good teachers, and if anybody has the same classes that i do. Unfortunately none of them did but as i spot my better friends i say goodbye and head away from them. I walk up to my best friends alec and tyler they tell me “Gracie there's nothing to worry about, its college!” I figure that they are right but that doesn’t change the fact that it was only my first day and i had no idea who anybody was here. I was scared, i knew it was going to be way harder than high school. Both alec and tyler say they have the first class with me and it was 15 minutes to but they joked with me and said that it's almost mandatory to show up at least 5 minutes late to a college class. So of course it also made me nervous that they were going to be late to class. I had thought about all the times i got threatened for my attendance at the high school and how the teachers would make you go to ISS for the whole hour if you were even a minute late. I had millions of thoughts running through my head, who am i going to sit by? What if the teacher yells that we are

I have never experienced more friendship, love, disgust, and sadness at one time than at my time at a Rotary Youth Leadership Award camp (RYLA) this past summer. Everyone said it was not going to be as bad as I thought and that I was over reacting. However, they were only half right. I thoroughly enjoyed every second at RYLA, but I also wished I was at home.

My eyes had barely opened all the way before excitement set in. Today was the day. With one great leap I was out of bed, and in my clothes ready for school. I also got my clothing and other accessories ready for our long drive up Mt. Hood after school. My older sister, Christine, always went up the mountain to hot springs but I never got to experience anything like it, so the previous night, all the siblings that were going stood together against my mom's tyranny and managed to convince her to let us go to the hot springs. She never really gave a reason besides how late it was. I theorize that she didn't have any other excuses. She was unreasonable in that manner.

I awoke on an early morning, my mother tugging on me. I ask, "What are you doing?" in a tired voice. She replied, "Get ready, Armani!" That's when I remembered, that today was the big day, where I would go to school for my first time. In a hurry, I jumped out of my bed and put on my clothes. I've never seen my parents so happy before, and I was confused why. I wasn't quite sure what "school" was, but I knew it was a place where kids like me went and I will learn things. Thinking about it, scared me on how my experience was gonna be for the first time in my life.

In school, I have always been a relatively successful student, and I was always considered one of the smarter kids by my parents and a lot of the other students. In about sixth grade when they started to split the grade up into certain classes for the “advanced” kids and the kids that weren’t considered advanced. I was in the classes with all the kids that weren’t considered advanced. At the time though, I didn’t realize what they were doing or that I wasn’t actually considered a smart kid by the school, I just knew all my friends were in classes I wasn’t in, and it really upset me. I got put in the classes with a bunch of kids I didn’t like, or just people I didn’t know, and had never seen before. I still had the bus where I got to see a few of my friends, but other than that, they just weren’t around.

One of my favorite sayings is “dare to be different.” I have two older brothers, both of whom have attended and done well at Indiana University. I have enjoyed visiting the school, but I don't plan to follow in their footsteps. I'm more of a do my own thing kind of girl. While considering where to attend college, I’ve often thought that I’d like to find a school with an outstanding academic reputation, the feeling of a big school atmosphere, plus the many benefits of a small school. Tulane is such a place.

Middle school changes lives, it’s as simple as that. It changes everything that you know about yourself and your abilities, and turns it upside down. When you walk through the doors on your first day of school, you are confident and ready for everything to come, but by the last day of eighth grade, you are exhausted, almost as if the school itself sucked the life right out of you. And yet, you have new friends, amazing teachers, and new interests that you had never even given a second thought before middle school. I myself have had many experiences in the middle school, good and bad.

To say I enjoyed our field trip to Epic Elementary would be an understatement. I learned so much in those two hours, and I have found myself thinking about Epic a lot over the last week. Anytime I attend professional development, I try to take one idea away to try in my classroom. After leaving Epic on Wednesday, I couldn’t just pick one idea. There were so many valuable take-aways from this experience.

It was a sunny summer day and football camp, was going to start. The week before I was preparing for it. I bought gloves and cleats. I love football, but I can’t play it because I am too short and I can’t catch. I knew in the next couple of weeks I would be at camp.

Just as all our students come with unique experiences and backgrounds, we as teachers all have different experiences and training that prepare us to excel in the classroom. The way I learn, the way I was thought and the experience I had as a student in the classroom greatly influence the way I teach today.

I arrived at New North at 5:58pm, 2 minutes before practice should begin. There were about 6-7 people in the studio as well; some were opening up their instrument cases to start tuning their instruments while a few where in the back of the room chatting and preparing the percussion equipment setup. The 4x6 chair set up for the band was already in place, along with some of the trumpet section members in their seats and playing on their instruments or doing something on their smartphones. Slowly, more people showed up into the room around 6:00pm-6:05pm, heading to their designated seat with instruments in hand, or with their bookbags. Those with larger instruments head downstairs where the locker room is located to obtain their instruments

Outdoor E.D was a time to make memories, to experience something that was different then just going to school everyday. Going to Outdoor Science School was a fun experience I’ll never forget. Hanging with my friends, learning about nature, and being on my own were all pieces of the experience I want to remember. I not only learned about the forest, but I got experience something I never had before.

Freshman year was a relatively complicated year for me. I made a big change by leaving the school district I grew up in for a school that would challenge me academically. This wasn't an easy transition to go to a new school that I had no friends at in the beginning, but I knew it was the place for me to be. I put my faith in hard work and in the reputation of a school I had only been to once. Although this sounds like the recipe for disaster, it ended up being the formula for success for myself. I knew that if I worked hard in everything and trusted in the process then eventually things will work out. I knew I would be able to accomplish things I had never done before because of this school.