My Personal Experience : My Experience At School

Today, I came prepared to teach my lesson as I was supposed to but times got switched up and plans got changed. In some ways I'm glad this happened because it taught me an important lesson of being flexible. As a teacher, things aren't always going to go smoothly and on track; there are always mix-ups along the way and learning how to cope with those are imperative. Although I didn't have a chance to teach today, I conducted morning meeting and read some of the book “Crenshaw” to the class. After, the class and I walked down to the computer room for coding. They just started creating different objects that preform different functions. For example, students chose between a bee, earthquake, dumpster, or car to create and make moveable. I

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.

There i was standing there in front of my classroom trying to prepare myself for the hell i was about to face today. I knew when i walked into that classroom, I would be tormented by not only the students but the teacher as well. This is what i went through for almost the past 4 years attending my elementary. I felt like an outcast, i was constantly told i wasn't good at anything and i believed that. I felt like everyone had something they were good at or excelled at and then there was just me. At this time I was 10 years old and attending Ridgewood elementary in Columbus Ohio. i had 5 classes at ridgewood and all of the classes and teachers treated me the same excluding one, art class with Mrs. Worley. Mrs. Worley was the only teacher that believed in me and thought i could do anything if i set my mind to it. On top of that i loved art, i loved to draw, paint, design and Mrs. Worley would always be fascinated by work. I remember that i would always stay in the art room during recess and draw. Mrs.Worley would always tell me that i had a talent for drawing and that lit something in me it was as if Jim was good at basketball, Sally was good at singing, David was good at math, and I was good at drawing.

Throughout my years of school, I often was the top of my class. I excelled in subjects such as science and math, and even could write an essay worthy of applause. In kindergarten, my mother gave our teacher a paper with nine different math problems, all advanced for what we were learning at the time. I had completed them all with ease and efficiency. I was recommended for a program at the school called Challenge. This program was for the students who “thought differently” and “performed tremendously” in normal schooling. I took the qualifying tests and passed and was to begin attending the next week. I recall my parents telling me sometime later that the instructor for that class told my parents that she had never seen such a young boy with the intelligence I had.

Middle school is about hitting puberty, getting your first real boyfriend/ girlfriend, or even just making friends to begin your journey through life with. But for me, middle school was a wake up call to how awful life could really be. To begin the Dark Ages, sixth grade was full of fashion mistakes. Things like wearing my soccer warm-up to school every day and those I’m-a-girl-but-I’m-secretly-a-boy sport shorts. In seventh grade, I was eaten alive by my insecurities. Causing me to cake my face full of foundations, concealers, and powders, all to cover up the acne that plagued my face. And quite honestly, I don’t remember anything significant about the eighth grade, other than the field trips I always third-wheeled on. Maybe I can’t remember anything important about that time in my life because everything just blurred together with a common theme; sadness.

When I was five years old, I loved school. The bright colors of the classroom appealed to me, and what I was learning fueled my soul, making me feel as if I could take on anything my adult life could try to throw my way. The only thing that could make it better, I thought, was actually going to school. My family didn’t believe in traditional brick and mortar schools. They believed that by going to public school, their children would inevitably become corrupt. My begging resulted in being allowed to strap an old backpack on and walk out of my back door, around the exterior of my house as many times as I wished, and then back inside through the front door. This lasted a few days before I realized that this result was a ripoff. Even as a small child, I valued quality education, and being treated fairly. I taught myself math until age nine and even though bystanders tried to help me, I was tested and therapy was recommended, but I received my GED and have started college.

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.

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.

When I was a freshman starting in Gladstone High School, all I thought my only goal was to actively participate in the classes that I needed to go to college. I was reluctant of high school since I did not know what to expect. I was not the athletic one but I was smart in academics. However, there was one event during the middle of my freshman year that presented a challenge I had to face.

San Francisco in 1906. Laughter and questioning was what they heard but all I could hear, were memories of trains flashing by my house and the mutters of drunk and drugged homeless men pacing up and down the streets. At 11 years old, all I wanted was to live in a safe welcoming neighborhood with trees shading the street, letting light flow through the branches at dusk. All I wondered was why my parents chose to live where we did. I was able to avoid having friends over throughout Elementary, but them coming over during middle school was inevitable. The embarrassment I had about where I lived had consumed much of my childhood, but I learned how to be open about who I was and how one aspect of your life does not determine who you are.

Over the four years of high school, there is a lot I learned whether its academics or relationship with others. An essential lesson I learned was the importance of friendship. The first day of 9th grade that I vividly remember when we entered the high school block at my previous school “Bradenton Prep Academy” in Dubai UAE. My friends and I were excited that we were part of the “older kids” which meant we got respect from the middle school and that we got some sense of respect from our fellow students. I remember that we were informed in the last days of eighth grade that there were going to be three ninth-grade classes and who was going to be in each class was going to be announced the day before school starts. I remember me and my

Many of my classmates know me as "that incredibly smart kid who is destined to achieve great things yet is always so helpful and nice and humble". From my interactions with them, I sense that they respect me for my academic excellence, but even more so for my obliging attitude towards everyone around me. Though I believe my classmates would correctly identify my strong academics as issuing from a natural talent coupled with an innate motivation to learn, most are actually unaware of the two major factors in my environment that have influenced my character.

I have always been a shy person since I have been a little kid. I have been always nervous to go do things with people or to make a mistake in front of people. I remember in the 7th grade, the teacher called on me, and I had been paying attention, but I got the question confused so I said something that was wrong. I felt the whole class just stare at me and laugh. Ever since then I have always struggled with self confidence. I lacked self confidence in just about everything, like what clothes to wear, what to say to people, talking in front of a class, or walking in front of people.

During my early years in school, I was at the top of the class most of the time until I changed schools. From preschool to second grade, I attended Burbank Boulevard Elementary School. I was very proficient at reading and writing, I was always doing my homework, and I was an overall great student. When the time for third grade came, I transferred to Valley Alternative Magnet School. I attended Valley Alternative from third grade to ninth grade. In third grade, I was doing quite well in reading and writing, but I was struggling in math, and I was fat and lazy. As time passed by, I would want to do less reading and homework and more eating.

On a normal school day, kindergarten, in Central Oahu, Hawaii, my grandfather and I got into the car and he drove me to school. I grab my bookbag while my grandfather parks the car. We get out of the car and my grandfather walked me to the classroom as normal. He said, “Goodbye, I love you. I’ll pick you up once school gets out.” At this point, I went into my classroom, then said “Good Morning” to my teacher, and took a seat at my desk.