My Personal Experience In Public 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.

From what I have heard about elementary school in America, I can definitely say it is not like the experience I had in the Netherlands. My elementary school was an international school in the middle of a large Dutch city about an hour away from my house. International, meaning there were kids from all over the world there, sharing their culture and building lifelong friendships without even realizing it. I certainly did not realize the culture or friendships I had picked up on until much later on and have only now come to appreciate the time I spent at that school.

I grew up in a diverse spectrum of economic affluence. Attending public school exposed me to a wide range of economic lifestyles within my community. However, it wasn’t until I was older that I began to notice this. Due to my public school education, the friends that I had growing up came from various backgrounds. My experience growing up with, learning with, and forming friendships with people who have come from low-income families and communities has given me the skills to effectively teach low-income communities. In high school, I was part of several organizations that revolved around community service. Volunteering for organizations that benefit low-income communities and individuals has exposed me to the horrific conditions of poverty

I grew up on a farm in southwestern Iowa outside of a town named Harlan. My dad is a farmer and has not moved out of our county his entire life. My mom was a teacher in the Harlan School District for 27 years, before resigning in 2013. I spent much of my childhood split between two places: our family farm and my mom’s classroom. I ran through the cornfields just as much as I ran through the hallways of her school. As time went on, I spent less time on the farm and more time in classrooms.

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.

This year started atrociously and I was asceticism to the fact that my job was keeping me from doing my finest in school. I look back at it not with disappointment but with the recognition that I can’t multi-task two major time-consuming activities. I was working 5-9pm, 6 days a week was physically and mentally exhausting I would always come to school tired. I would be tardy and or late every day in my 1st hour. At one point I was failing four classes. I would come home from work and be up until like 3 am. I was trying my best to keep up on like the essays but my ADHD made everything so hard. But it was so much I would end up stressing out. Semester one was just rough in general. I went to parent-teacher conferences and it opened my eyes but not enough for change. But by the end of conferences, my mom was crying because she wanted to know what was wrong. I wanted to tell her but I couldn’t. I’d rather self-destruct myself than have everyone worried about me. Then I was to a point when I just didn’t care what anyone else thought I just wanted to make money and blow it on materialistic things like clothes and shoes and things of those sorts. I was at a point where I literally let money control who I was and how I acted as a person. Finally came the day of the essay I really did try like my problem was I had all the information but didn’t know how to put it on paper and I also struggled with focusing on writing the paper because the number of pages overwhelmed me and then

A gentle tap on my shoulder from my mother woke me every morning, providing me with the sheer motivation I needed to develop the desire to attend school. Every day was a fight for me to push through school as I was the wallflower that never seemed to blossom with my peers. This rejection in my early school years prevented me from focusing on relationships and rather on grades and my passion for music. I determined myself to be an outcast since I could never make a friend that desired to talk to me above anyone else on their spare time, causing me to take a turn in my self-confidence and acceptance.

From a young age to about eight years of age, my mother homeschooled my siblings and I until she obtained employment to support our family. Being introduced into public schooling at the age of nine, I not only struggled with social anxiety, but also was diagnosed with dyslexia. Being dyslexic not only made academics difficult, but because of the difficulty I had, I was held back a year in second grade. After many months, from the assistance of many teachers, I began to manage my social anxiety and face my dyslexia. With having to work harder than my peer group to maintain decent grades, I often found myself making comparisons of my attributes against those of my classmates. This caused me to become self-aware and extremely self-conscious of what others thought of me. Furthermore, this caused me to hide my age from many people for fear of them calling me stupid.

“School time! School time!” exclaimed my Dad as he burst into my room at seven in the morning. Groggy and tired, my siblings and I woke up and dragged ourselves to the kitchen for breakfast. All five of us kids, ran from room to room, grabbing clothes, toothbrushes, and backpacks to get ready for school. The sixth would watch in astonishment, sitting comfortably on the couch, without a worry in the world. Along with some warm milk to her liking, she watched as the rest of the house filled with the daily before-school chaos. Once everyone was ready, we loaded up in our rather cramped Chevy Tahoe, making our way to three different schools all over the city of Irving. On the way, listening to Norteñas, my parent’s favorite type of classical Mexican music. Soon we’d all be dropped off, ready for a day full of learning. Next came the afternoon craze, but that’s a whole other environment.

I’ve been anxious about college admittance since I first learned what college was. When the first trimester of fifth grade ended, and I learned that my good name had been sullied with a B+ grade in my reading class, I was unreservedly hysterical until my mother finally cornered me into my bedroom. I imagine she was getting snot-and-tear stains out of her woolen sweater for days.

That day I found out If I was a school shooter I would be a straight white male, 79% of the time. However, if I were to go to jail I would find that all I would have had to be, was a different skin color.

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.

“I have grown into a being that is sitting on top of a throne.” Entering school on September of 2016, I started off slow and bad thinking it was just the aftermath from the long fun summer I had. After a few months, my grades began to drop, I was missing school, and I was making bad decisions. Academically and personally, I was digging my own grave without my knowing, but soon I gathered my faults my mistakes and my ongoing issues and tried to start clean. I started to realize more and more as I went through my high school years up to now how important some things may be and how somethings will not matter in the future. My Junior Year I learned to distinguish between what I know will help me in my future vs what will not help me and to remove what will not be important to me. I lost friends, chances, a little bit of dignity, but through the year I learned that it is okay to lose friends, I learned that I will begin to take opportunities that will present for me, and I gained back dignity that was lost. I created a new atmosphere for myself and began to appreciate what really needed to be appreciated. Junior year may have been the hardest year of my whole education.

Throughout my years in preschool, primary and elementary, middle school, and high school, hands-on learning and the relationships I’ve formed with teachers and classmates have made my education effective and fun, forming me into the student and person I am now.

To you, I, Dora Su, may not seem like a very special person just because I am not perfect, but I am definitely limited edition. For sure, I am not your typical teenager; in fact, I am the person to learn high level mathematics and science in my free time rather than the person who would play video games such as League of Legends or text and socialize in their free time. Time to me is very valuable and I enjoy spending this time learning and spending it wisely while having bits of fun. As myself, I am an immensely ambitious in learning and trying new activities, I am a risk-taker for challenges, and I am highly active as well as self-responsible and creative person. My distinct personality makes me different from everyone else and explains