Personal Narrative-AP Teacher Mrs. Alves

The best teacher I’ve ever had was my Honors English teacher, who was the strictest and harshest grader I’ve ever come across. With her as my teacher, I spent the majority of my sophomore year stressed out. What I didn’t realize, however, was that the only reason I was struggling, was because I refused to acknowledge that what she was doing was teaching. The teachers I had previously, never challenged me in the way that she did and, because of that, I could do the bare minimum and still pass. After I finished her class, I realized that she didn’t just set me up to pass her class, but set me up to excel in the future. She changed the way I looked at education, and made me acknowledge that having trouble in a class didn’t mean that I was incapable;

When I first started thinking about college schools I never thought about going to MSU or Ole Miss. I wanted to go to the bigger universities, but I knew I wouldn’t do well if I went there my first year. My high school did not prepare me enough for University, and I hadn’t decided on a major either. I choose East Central Community College (ECCC) as the school I would go to for many reasons, and when I got here I knew I made the right choice.

I walked into room 160 and saw a group of anxious 14 year olds, waiting for the lady we had all heard so much about to walk in. Rumors about her ranged from “she will make you cry daily” to “she’s basically the human form of a fire breathing dragon”. When the bell rang, we all prepared for the worst. The small lady that walked in, with short brown hair and glasses too big for her face did not look nearly as intimidating as all the stories suggested, which was comforting on that first day of class. This was Mrs. Carballo, my AP US History teacher. She started our first day off by talking about the summer reading and our objectives for the year. By the time the second week rolled around, I felt pretty comfortable with the course...that is, until we all received books that were almost bigger than we were!

Orendorf Elementary School, a place of many memories and much learning. What was the most treasured part of each day? Recess after lunch, of course! This was the time to play silly games, like hop-scotch and jump rope, and hang out with friends to discuss the latest in “who likes who” and “which boy has cooties”. This was also the longest recess of the day. My friends and I tried to finish eating our lunch as quickly as possible because the sooner you got finished eating, the sooner you could go outside to play. After eating, Denise, Julie, and I quickly cleaned off our table, packed up our lunchboxes, and then raised our hands to be dismissed from the lunchroom. As soon as Mr. Little told us we could go, we quickly made our way from the cafeteria

"Phil, can you please get off the couch and continue cleaning the kitchen?" Dan walked towards the television with a broom in his right hand and turned off the anime Phil was binge watching. "Jess is almost home and I don't want her walking into a pig sty!"

As the school years passed by, I kept doubting my religion because I felt different than the other people around me. Second grade to Fourth grade was a blur. I was affected by comments here and there, but nothing too exclusive. I started growing use to it. Until Fifth grade happened. I began wearing the hijab at the end of November of the school year. The first day I wore it, my teacher, Mrs. Casey, decided to ask me in an unprofessional matter, “Why have you decided to wear THAT on your head”. I could feel the eyes of everyone in class staring back at me, like daggers. My reply began with “Cause my cousin began wearing the scarf”. Yeah, I should have told you guys that that’s the reason behind me starting to wear the hijab. There was no reply

“Don’t try to move it,” my coach added as rolled to my side trying to get myself off of the cold ground. The touch of my coach’s warm hand frightened me at first, but in the corner of my eye I saw him whisper to the assistant coach “Yeah it does not look good.”

Most people’s first thought when they find out they’re being strangled is probably something along the lines of “Oh no! I’m being strangled! Help! Ahh!” or something like that. Mine, of course, was “Aww crap, not again.” I was fairly used to people attempting to strangle me by now, which might have to do with the fact that most people at Shield don’t like my awesome puns as much as I do. However, most of them used their hands to do it, not super powers. That was new. Unfortunately that also meant that I couldn’t use my super awesome katanas to get out of my current situation. I designed them myself, but I was still making modifications. They were way cooler than normal katanas because after reading a certain book series(it’s called H.I.V.E.) I made a few changes to the original design. I could now make them as sharp or dull as I wanted, to a certain degree.

I’ve learned many things in my English II class here at Infinity ECHS, an example of

She completed some of her course work the first hour while she was here. If she is here tomorrow, I think we need to make sure she does not have any course work to complete. If she is hanging around, I think we need to let her know that we have some facility work to do (we need to rearrange the site, have the locks changed, and clean the site thoroughly). That is a suggestion to get her out the building.

After, everyone leaves for lunch I go to Mrs. Price’s desk to tell her that she was wrong,but when I go up to her desk to tell her she ignored me like i wasn’t even there. While,I was just standing there watching her grade papers and waiting for her to notice me, Kassidy Laster walked in, she was Mrs. Price’s favorite student. I stepped out of line and automatically when Mrs. Price saw Kassidy she shot right up from her seat and gave her a hug and started talking to her like she still didn’t know I was there. I was furious I stormed out of the classroom and went to lunch. I only had five minutes to eat because I took so long in Mrs. Price’s class. While I was thinking about what had happened in Mrs. Price’s classroom the announcements came

My history grade was a solid A, my math grade on the other hand was a C-. It wasn’t till the end of the second week that I had realized that there was a possibility I would not pass or make it on the final trip. I started having some very awful stress attacks, I would hyperventilate and could not focus on anything. Luckily for me I had some amazing people in my life at that moment. All the Upward Bound staff, my friends, and teachers were helping me out as much as they could. Every time I would want to give up they wouldn’t let me. They believed in me more than I believed in myself.

Slowly walking down the noisy hall, I shuffle my feet as I get closer and closer to ms. C. Johnson’s class. Something was different, but I just pushed the thought into the back of my mind and immediately thought about something else. I stopped in realization as I noticed ms. Johnson not standing by the door at the end of the hall as she always does. She must be out I thought to myself. I entered the classroom to be greeted by the familiar faces of my peers. I grabbed my folder while heading to my seat. The room was silent besides the quiet hum of the air conditioning unit. I averted my gaze to where ms. Johnson usually sits to see the sub texting away on her phone. I wonder when lunch is, I was thinking to myself, but was soon disturbed by

Today I had the pleasure to meet and interview Ms. Merlino. She is a teacher at Rosemont Elementary, she has been teaching kinder garden for 32 years. She started teaching in DISD and then moved to Coppell ISD. However, after a few years being there she decided that her heart was in Dallas, so she moved back and started working for the DISD once again. She mentioned that seeing the children grow brings joy to her, as well as the love each student develops for learning throughout the year. On the other hand, some of the challenges include not being able to meet the huge expectations from the district, and the difficulty to balance the needs of each student due to the lack of help and attention at home.

It was about seven years ago. I was 12 years old and in the winter months of my sixth grade year. To give you a visualization I was outside in a trailer classroom for health. The bell had rung to indicate the end of class. As I gathered my materials and headed out for the door I heard my health teacher, Mrs. Kelly, call out, “Watch your step on the stairs, they are a little icy from the rain that froze over nigh-”. Before Mrs. Kelly could finish her warning there I was on the ground, my pants covered in mud. I had slipped in a small mud pile that was at the bottom of the stairs. My papers flew EVERYWHERE. With the help of my fellow classmates I gathered my papers and managed to get out of the mud. I did the walk of shame back into the health trailer where Mrs. Kelly was standing. “Oh Alicia”, she said, “what are gonna do with you?”. After explaining the slip up she told me to go to the girls locker room to see Mrs. Walmsley, one of the other female gym teacher, and see if she would be kind enough to wash my pants for me.