My First Class - Original Writing

It was sixth grade and an advanced English class was chosen. I was discouraged because I actually enjoyed reading and writing but found out I wasn’t smart enough to be in that class. However, I would say that seventh grade was my favorite year of English. We still had vocabulary, which I wish we still did because I always have boring essays because I don’t remember the words we learned. I wouldn’t say that I disliked reading yet in middle school. I’d even say the most exciting part of middle school would be reading The Hunger Games with Mrs. Young, especially since she was kind of a nerd and got overly excited about all of our

I still remember my very first day of school. Neither my mom or I spoke English. I relied on other bilingual kids to understand the teacher, but within six months I was able to communicate in English. By the third grade I was reclassified as an English speaker. This was the first time I experienced first hand the result of countless hours of study. This motivated me further. From there on out, I enjoyed school to the fullest.

Since coming to America, I have moved to an ample amount of places because my father’s job concerns. I changed school frequently and in each new school I was never greeted with a warm welcome. With one glance my classmates saw I was different from them. I was often bullied and teased because of my racial difference from my classmates, from these experiences I became a quiet and docile girl. This way I thought I would not get in anyone’s way. I had closed up in the world in front of me; I never expressed my own opinions and always agreed with the majority. However secretly inside of me, I was frustrated not being able to express myself and yet I was unable to change. I craved to be what I was in the inside to be on the outside. Still by

8th grade. The last year at Ross Middle School. Being retrospective on past years has me thinking of my many accomplishments, and many fails I’ve had. From getting very good grades to the embarrassing moments. All the time I wish I was still in elementary school.

Seven years earlier, I migrated to Hawaii when I was twenty-three. I had flown away from my mother and my life in the Philippines. Like young adults and being rebellious, I wanted to live on my own away from my mother 's roof. I left the city life I grew up with in the Philippines in hope of a better life in another country.

On the first day of the second year of fifth grade. It was horrible everyone new people from when they were in fourth grade . I felt all alone in a corner. I knew no one ,then the teacher comes up . She said " Hi I will be your teacher this year". I said " Hi I will be one of your students this year".

I moved to the United States. I did not speak English well. When we went to our first year of school, I had really hard time understanding what the teachers said, homework and classwork assignments too. My first day at the American school, I will never forget. It was my biology class, the teacher called me to introduce myself. I stood up and started to think of all English words that I knew, which can help me introduce myself. Teacher and classmates ask questions to help me. But I could not answer them because I simply did not know how. Somehow I was able to say my name and quickly went back to my desk. My hands were shaking and heart beating so fast, at that time I saw how some students were laughing. I did not know why there were laughing, but it makes me feel worse about my English. When I came home, I cried so hard. Next days, weeks, and month were same. I hold my tears during classes because I did not want to cry in front of everyone. But at home, I cried all the time. To me, it was so hard physically and mentally. I had a bad headache after trying to translate everything that teachers trying to explain. My homework takes me 8 hours minimum. Every day I went to sleep at

The classroom set up was very different than what I was used to back in Nepal. I didn’t know anyone in there. I didn’t know what to do, so I just managed to sit in the chair that was nearby the door. All the other students were staring at me like something was wrong with me. In reality, everything felt wrong to me when I was in the situation where it felt so bad that I just wanted to quit. It seemed like I was on a one-way street, and I couldn’t figure out what I should do and how I would get out from it. It was almost the end of that class. The time passed just by watching a documentary on the literature’s time period. After the bell rang, all the students left the classroom; then I walked to my teacher with the problem I was having. I was lost in every other class as the hallways get crowded and the buildings were huge. He helped me solve the problems that I had, and my first day of the new school passed in the same way as it did first three hours of that

Part 1: To be perfectly honest, I’ve never had a time where I have felt very isolated or very included in a school setting, well not a time that is particularly memorable. But, from talking to my friend, Caroline, she remembers her senior year of high school she was had a writing class and the majority kids in that class were the “cool/popular kids.” She recalls many instances where her teacher, Mrs. Upadhyay, would mock or make fun of the questions she would ask or the comments she would make in class. There was one instance where there were a group of popular boys in class and they were insanely chatty. Her teacher never asked them to stop talking but when Caroline turned to her partner to ask a question she was immediately called out. Another instance was when Mrs. Upadhyay was lecturing and a lightbulb went off in Caroline’s head. She thought she would say something that would really impress the class and help them understand the lecture. She raised her hand, when her teacher saw it instead of calling on her she chose to ignore her. Caroline thought it was okay though, she would wait until Mrs. Upadhyay was finished. Shortly there after, a popular boy raised his hand and she stopped her lecture to call on him. Caroline was completely appalled by this. She immediately cut off the

During a parent teacher conference, the teacher asked my mom why bananas were the only thing I ate. “She doesn’t know how to say anything else”, my mom replied in broken English. From that day on the teachers fed me everything. I liked preschool. Despite the language barrier, the other children welcomed me. They showed me where the markers and books were and what we would do after lunch...when the teacher said, “shhh”, I’d have to be quiet. And when nap time was over, they showed me all the games we could play. When do the opinions of these kids change? When their parents tell them it's not ok to talk to those who cannot speak the same language as you or when the president calls people like me ‘a problem’? I didn’t care to answer these questions because soon enough, I was just like the other kids. I remember when teachers would ask students to raise their hands if they weren’t born here. It felt to me like the number of hands became less and less as I grew older. People wouldn’t believe me when I raised my hand, because my English was “too good” or because I “didn’t look foreign”. I became ashamed to raise my hand..to show people I was different...and all I could think about were these unanswered

In school we look normal to all people like nothing was happening i was gland that my sister and I were in the same high school but different floors. My school was mixed, Hispanics from Honduras, Mexico, Puerto Ricans, but mostly Dominicans, African Americans, etc. My teachers were A few African Americans, one Spanish, and mostly White Caucasians. All my teachers were so lovely except for one, he was African American and he was a history teacher. It was my freshman year and I couldn’t express myself properly in English, he asks me to read a page of a book, and I didn’t have the abilities to pronounce properly most of the words. The teacher lost his patience and shouted me “what I was doing in a school where no one speak Spanish” I responded

I attended a small charter school in Westland, Michigan. Between these walls, I broke and regained my pieces. My cultural difference set me apart from most of the kids - my accent, the way I dressed and the way I behaved. Social interaction with my peers were difficult because they didn’t know how to connect with me. When they did try to communicate, the conversation always provoked me. For instance, during the first week of school my table partner introduced herself and so did I. She asked where I was from and when I answered she was stunned. She later informed the rest of the class and for the rest of the day I was bombarded with outrageous questions like: Do you guys live in trees? How did you go to school? I felt so diminish as my peers indirectly stated their thought about people like

The first year living in America, I went to fourth grade at a local public school. I was ostracized from my peer groups and bullied because of my Asian features and my limited vocabulary. It was a new beginning, they said, a second chance, a better opportunity. Yet I felt trapped, betrayed, and lost.

I was a fifteen year old who knew little to no English. I still remember my first day in high school. I had no idea what was being taught. I was just sitting on the desk extremely

My first day of school felt so strange as if I was banished to Mars. Or at least to some very far away place full of strangers where nobody speaks my language. Because indeed, nobody spoke my language on my first day of school. I was 6 years old and lost among people whom I couldn’t even talk to. How could this happen? I spent all of my childhood in Hungary, but it still felt like we just moved to another country right before me starting school. Although no such thing happened, I still blame everything on my parents.