My Experience On The Public School System And How They Impacted Me

Armed with new sneakers and a whole new vocabulary, I started my first day of school. It was a learning experience for both my parents and I, but when it was over I felt like I fit in. Kids do not care where you are from or if your English isn’t up to par. In fact they only cared about two things: how good you were at tag and what kinds of crayons you had. Lucky for me, I was doing great in both departments. I experienced my first year of elementary school alongside the friends I previously made.

While reading Too Cool for School by Ellis Cose I have became aware of various aspects of my ‘schooling’ experience. I realized that I may not have had the best schooling experience, but I never pushed up against the system to get any better. Throughout my life I have attended over 10 schools some very high end others bottom of the barrel. Like Cose, I always knew my intellectual abilities, but I was always so dissatisfied with my situation I didn't make the best of it. Instead of soaking up as much knowledge as possible and making a lesson out of my situation I became complacent. I started to slack off and allow myself to become stagnant to what I knew my abilities were. I allowed myself to be a product of my environment when I should I have

Studying was never my strong suit, I found myself reading the same sentence numerous times until I eventually gave up. The same went for homework, the few times I remembered I had homework. Subsequently, my grades plummeted; I was applying myself but failed to see results. If I was lucky enough to complete a reading assignment, I often found myself unable to recall what I just read. My instructors attributed my unsatisfactory grades on laziness. “You would be such a good student if you weren’t so lazy,” said my chemistry professor during tutorials. I sat there reading the same sentence, wondering why nothing made sense. Eventually, my conclusion was that I wasn’t smart and I would never achieve academically. I often told myself that ADHD made me dumb; these conclusions delivered a massive blow to my

School was a challenge for me when I was younger. Not having the right mindset for school at that time was a major problem as it could affect the way I felt about school for the rest of my life. To me, school was all about who looked the best and who was more popular. I was new to middle school and it was totally different from elementary. It felt as if focusing on school wasn’t as important at that time, needless to say I was on the bandwagon train too. Hanging around and trying to keep up with the cool kids took a toll on my grades tremendously. My schoolwork had escaped my mind in a way. I didn’t see it as a priority anymore.

In my younger years of attending elementary school were always difficult. I was constantly moving schools I never had the opportunity to fully

I remember going into my freshman year of high school nervous but excited because I thought I’d learn so many new things. Next thing you know I found myself dreading school. Was I being lazy? Was it my lack of motivation? I still can’t grasp why exactly I lost that excitement or that yearning to go to school. I was raised to have the idea that school was a place to learn not socialize. But at the age of 14, what teenagers don’t want to socialize and that’s what got a hold of me. I spent too much time worrying about other things that didn’t involve my education.

It was in the middle of junior Year and I answered a phone call l from my mother. It was regarding a recent update in my math grade, “How have you still not figured out how to study and do well on tests?” I pondered that sentence from my mother, and how many times I have heard it before. Since the beginning of my career at Wayland Academy I have struggled to figure out how to be successful with the way I was feeling inside the classroom and out. Watching my peers be able to retain information and succeed was hard to comprehend. I was trying my absolute best but was still failing to achieve the goals I had set. My teachers and parents thought the reason for not achieving my goals inside the classroom, was my inability to study enough. Lazy was a word frequently used to describe me, because my test averages were low, leading people to think the results I am getting are a direct correlation to the amount of time I put into

I have never actually had problems with school. I enjoy coming and seeing my friends everyday, as well and learning in class. Nothing really interesting in that aspect I suppose.

School was never a big issue for me. That could have been because my parents chose to put me in the public school system for my academic career. In grade school, I went to Kyrene de la Esperanza and then off to Centennial Middle School. After Centennial, I then attended Mountain Pointe High School. All three of these schools are in the Ahwatukee area (where I grew up and currently live.) During school, I was the average student that did not talk much. Depending on the day I would raise my hand for the easy questions but usually I just listened. As a student, I tried to get “good grades.” But that wasn’t always the case.

I have never had a problem with school, but that’s not saying it comes naturally either. As a matter of fact, I would even go so far as to compare going to high school like fighting a long war, meaning I have enjoyed school for the better part of my life, but I have definitely lost a battle or two. I believe that my strict upbringing has played a crucial role in developing my academic endeavors and how my expectations changed when fulfilling my education. Academics have changed my whole life and making a better person out of me. My academic career has developed because of my upbringing, determination as an individual, and having experiences as a student to influence my attitude towards education.

When I was a kid, school for me was waking up early in the morning. I also have to study a lot in school, then after school I have to do homework. I remember my first day at school. My mom and dad, both were so happy and prepared but I was so nervous and cheerless. I didn’t like to wake up early in the morning for school , but as time flew by I started loving school which made me wake up with energy instead of tiredness. I began to enjoy the school as I made new friends and I got to know how it is like when you meet people out of your neighborhood. With my friends I had lunch together and study together. I started to understand what the purpose of the education system. Based on what I understood I think the purpose of education is really aimed at helping students get to the point where they can learn to be on their own. In this journey of education I had a lot of positive and few negative experiences,but the negative experiences also helped me growing. Positive experiences are my teachers helping me improve, and I improved more when I moved to the United States.

School, to me and among many peers of my age, is not a distant term. I have spent one-third of my life time sitting in classrooms, every week since I was seven years old. After spending this much time in school, many things and experiences that happened there have left their mark in my memory. Some are small incidences while some have had a great impact on me. However, regardless the degree of significance, things that happened all contributed to shape the person that I am now.

Deciding what to eat for lunch, debating which extracurricular activities to join and making friends are typically common things you think of when thinking about school. In most cases when one thinks of school they think of making friends, having fun, learning and gaining independency, and ultimately getting out alive. My experience with school was not the best. Feeling like I never fit in always seemed to take place over my studies. Here is what I have learned.

I believe that everybody should be confident and stand up for themselves. I believe in this very much and I always will. I believe in my statement because of an experience I had last year, in eighth grade. I had gone to a private school with less than three hundred kids from grades k-8 from second grade to the end of seventh. It was a small school and it was very clicky. Everyone knew each other and whenever a student would leave, everyone would literally get mad at them, even the teachers. I think I’ve gotten my point across that the private school was not preparing me for real life. I made an independent decision to leave that school that had held the people who I considered family. I decided to go to public school for the first time since second grade, and I didn’t realize how nervous I was until I found myself standing alone in a corner on the first day of eighth grade at a place that I had never imagined myself attending. I didn’t really know how to socialize with new people because I had been so used to the same people for six and a half years. People thought I was awkward or shady. Everyday I hoped someone would come up to me and befriend me, but this didn’t happen until the second week of school. I was sitting at a sticky lunch table by a few acquaintances when a girl tapped my shoulder and asked me to follow her. In my head, I was confused because she was considered a “popular” girl. As I followed her out of the cafeteria, she said “You’re about to get yelled at.

The education we receive today holds the power to shape the individuals we will be in the future. Not only does our education aid our choices throughout school, but also the choices we make in our personal lives like where we choose to work and how we portray ourselves to society. Personally, I have enjoyed my educational experience. I have enjoyed learning new concepts and interacting with new people. Of course, there are obstacles along the way. However, these obstacles have given me the opportunity to realize my strengths and weaknesses and learn to improve in both areas. As a student, I hold onto my perseverance, seek guidance from influential figures in my life, and embrace my challenges to which all contribute to my hope to become the finest version of myself.