It was fall of my first-grade year of school. The group of approximately fifteen of us gathered together for Meghan Zimmerman’s birthday party at Cordova lanes Bowling Alley. Each of us were enthusiastically, waiting for our turn to bowl. No one may know if everyone’s failure to follow directions caused me to bust open my chin but it certainly was a factor. In the events that followed I learned that if one fails to follow instructions the consequences can fall on those who do obey.
Everyone had already been there for about an hour but the excitement still beamed in their eyes. As I sat there impatiently waiting for my turn I heard the clashing of each pin of each lane as the pins fell to ground. CLANK, CLANK, CLANK went each of the pins. I glanced over towards my lane and noticed everyone placing their drinks on the light tinted wooded floor causing there to be rings of damp condensation everywhere. I thought nothing of the drinks at first but it was only five minutes later when one of employees came over. “Please tell your children to put their drinks on the tables,” I overheard her say to one of the mothers.
I heard the polite voices of one of the moms telling the group to remove the drinks from the area. I fully anticipated everyone else to listen to the adults, but this is was certainly not the case. What had made everything even worst was the parents themselves seemed to not care. This was such an atrocity. Confusion and anger swelled in me like a bubbling solution
The first year of middle school was a year of transition into a new world. I would be going to a new school and enhance my life academically and on a social level. Looking back at that year isn’t so pleasant. My new self today, sucked in numerous amounts of life lessons that contradict the person I was in sixth grade. Sixth grade was all about fitting in for me. I just wanted to be part of a crowd and be known. I didn’t care about my academics at the moment. However, I was lucky enough to be educationally talented and not get to astray in the learning environment. Personally, sixth grade was too overloaded with drama and the drive to be high in the social rankings. If I traveled back to sixth grade, I’d sucker punch myself for getting
My eighth grade year of Middle school. I had many challenges, with making friends and subjects. But one challenge was mathematics.I knew my eighth grade year was most important when it came transferring into my high school years, yet I didn’t do anything to raise my grade in mathematics at that time. It wasn’t until two I had a very low grade in mathematics on my report card at that I realized I needed to do something about my low grade. So after that report in math, I really was determined to really bring that F up to at least a B or A. So I remember I started to go to after school tutoring to get help with my math subject. They placed me with a teacher named Ms.Alice. And she really helped me with my subject.
When junior year ended last summer, I felt like I knew exactly what was coming my way-- after all, I watched three different groups of my friends go through senior years of their own. It was finally my turn to experience senior year, something it seemed I had known about for years, and I felt like senior year would be easygoing and uneventful. Now, it has taken just a few short months to realize how incorrect I was. If senior year has taught me anything, it is that one never really knows what comes next for them, even if they have a good idea. The monumental highs, as well as the deepest of lows, have kept me on my toes throughout my senior year.
The mood was overwhelmingly reverent, and I couldn’t decide if it was more out of fear or genuine respect. Greetings were exchanged between regulars, cigarettes were smoked and crushed and smoked again, and a small box of cookies remained on the table, unopened. No one wanted cookies. Everyone wanted a drink.
My memories are blurry. They are fragments of disjointed moments, without a linear narrative. I remember reading. It was in Mrs. Davidson first grade class. My reading proficiency skills were very poor, the English language still thick and unnatural on my tongue. While some of the other students took a Gifted class, I had to take a remedial course—English Learners (EL)— just so that I could hold onto the edge. I remember reading. I had a hard copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar in my little hands, reciting only the first page of the book from memory. The classroom was dark; the stream of sunlight filtering through the windows served as our only illumination. The rest of the words on the book looked like a mess of jumbled letters. I couldn’t make out anything other than the words “the” and “and.” I remember enthusiastically pointing out my “fluency” to my teacher, seemingly applauding my menial abilities: “The catpater at droo!” (The caterpillar ate through). In the first-grade, my free time was spread sporadically between watching The Little Mermaid, catching ugly black crickets and pretending that I was Sailor Moon, guardian of the galaxy. In the first grade, I was not at all concerned with words, literacy and books. In the first grade, I did not know the power that words hold. I did not know that books would change my life.
My year being a seventh grader has been filed with great experiences and growth. I was pushed to being the best I can be by my teachers and wonderful classmates in all of my classes. They did this by explaining to me how to make my work stronger and how to make me writing in my depth.This year has given me plenty of opportunities for my future.
I curled up on the sofa in the corner of the room, attempting to get a temporary escape from the chaos. In front of me laid my shot of unfinished vodka and a mess of other party foods. The others, a dozen feet away from me, were screaming, wiggling and jumping around as if they just got out of jail. With nightclub music blasting in my ear, I murmured to myself: “why does this happen?”
“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths,” (Walt Disney). The overview of my Junior year in high school was, I believe, the best school year so far both in academic and my personal achievements. As a person I had a major growth, I become more active in school in which was a huge step for me, and academically, well I’ve never seen so many A’s since Freshmen year, well that is if I examine only second semester but overall I felt that my grades were better than last year. This year I became a person who is more open-minded, one who sees the outside world, my mind has opened a door which helped me find the inner me that was stuck in for the past 2 years of high school like if I were a bud that has finally opened. I shockley impressed at myself, willing to accept any new challenges this year which truly helped me become a better person in education and personally.
Maybe they'd have done it anyway. Because in the table left by the teens a harried couple with two small children parked their containers in another instant also it was a good thing, too. It's Christmas. Stores are very active. They ca n't be got to by the people hired to wipe the tables down rapidly enough to make sure everyone includes a recently-wiped table who desires one; vacant platforms have reached reasonably limited inside the first-place. So-good for anyone two teens. They served somebody a little bit. I am hoping someone else saw them went on to be useful to yet
My senior year of high school was really lonely. I had gotten into a drama filled fight with my closest friends at the end of junior year, so my senior year I was voted off the friendship island and outcasted. Sure, I probably could have attempted to fix things, but I was stubborn and insisted on isolation rather than forgiveness. It was a really hard year for me emotionally between losing some great friends and the idea of college in the back of my mind. Who was I going to be? Where was I going to go? Would I ever make anymore friends? It seemed many of my classmates were busy making memories with their friends as our high school days were dwindling down, memories they would remember forever and there I sat hidden in the background, admiring from afar. It broke my heart, and to be honest with you... it just really sucked. I tried my best to make the most of it. I spent a lot of time that year with my nose in a book. It was my own unique way of making memories that year with no one else except myself and some truly memorable characters.
It was an oppressively hot and humid day (as usual) at Academy at the Lakes, and Mrs. Starkey was giving a tour to a group of august looking potential investors for the next fundraiser. As she approached the ‘infamous’ Room M-32, she began to feel nervous, and she began to speculate about the devastating possibilities, an idiosyncratic habit of hers. With sweat in her hand, she grabbed the door handle, and she, reluctantly, opened the door. Utter chaos. There were mad kids screaming at each other, and kids hitting each other; the class behaved like a stochastic fractal. Some kids were severely injured with broken bones and traumatizing hits to the head, and other kids were defenestrated. Mrs. Frizzle was out of school (so was the magical school bus), but her students were still in the classroom.
My first quarter was great! I really accomplished a lot of things and I received straight A’s on the report card so I’m pretty proud with myself. I joined Yearbook and Power of the Pen, I’m still in choir and in the band I’m first chair so a lot has happened. Being an eighth grader is different definitely! Last year I could walk down the halls and see people I knew that was older than me, but now I know a few more people than beginning of the year but still not a whole lot. When people say that they wouldn’t go back to middle school or high school, I say no because in middle school you are still a “kid” and you still are in a pretty good stage. Lunch is pretty fun too, I sit with my friends, Ellie, Sarah, and Cassidy. Classes are stressful
The years of my grade school education brings out the worst years of my learning experience. My schooling was full of teachers who doubted the students daily, administrators who thought they were better, and students who thought education ended with an high school diploma. In John Taylor Gatto’s “The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher” Gatto analyzes the school system that I have seen before my very eyes; a school system that without saying so, systemically sets children up to live under the law of the government. A system that trains children to obey and stay in the box that the system places them in.
As we got into the stadium is was very much a shock to me because I come from a small town with a small high school. The atmosphere of this stadium was much more different than what I remember of mine. Back at home it felt like the entire town came out to the game while at this game a ton of students and not as many parents but lots. So during the first half we kind of just observed the students, we watched what they were doing, what they were saying, and how they were acting. A vast majority of the girls were barely dressed, couples were participating in much more than just a simple back rub and the language was pretty vile. What really shocked me is how the adults and younger kids were acting. Literally, the high schoolers and adults were acting the same. The same actions, same skimpy dressing, and same terrible language. And the little kids were not acting the way little kids should be acting. Also the treatment of women for all ages was far less then what it should be: remarks were made, terrible words were said, and inappropriate contact was exchanged. We also looked at the division of student groups in the stands. This really brought me back to the lunch table model. If you looked into the stands you could see each individual “lunch table”; the Cheerleaders were cheering, the jocks were playing, the “emo’s” were talking with each other, the partiers were being rude, and many more groups. One thing that really shocked me
Sitting in the guidance office on my second day of eighth grade, I could only think, “How can this be happening to me again?” I was not there because of a scheduling issue or to plan my future, but I was there having another anxiety attack. I thought I had this problem straightened out. I had already lost a serious portion of my sixth grade year to this condition. With the aid of therapy and medication, I was hopeful my condition was under control.