Stuyvesant: A Short Story

It was mid-morning when I pulled up to school, still wondering if I made the right decision by enrolling. Instead of feeling calm, cool, and collected the only thing arriving early did was increase the feeling of impending doom. My mind was racing a mile a minute. Am I going to be able keep up to the bright minds fresh out of high school? It was time to find out.

As an economically disadvantaged, minority student who ventured out of a small, closed-minded town, I have developed a passion to serve the underserved. Throughout my life, I have been associated with and witnessed the consequences of being a minority. For example, with 1% of my high school identifying

High school is an important time for developing a sense of who you are as a person. Each kid who starts out high school will usually asks themselves what they are there to accomplish. For the most part, many set personal goals for themselves and strive to achieve above and beyond. However, some are just there for the experience and to see where it takes them. It’s apparent that some kids have an easier time and don’t have to struggle with their high school career. For example, some of the students have followed strong academic paths that have prepared them for this time in their lives, where as others have struggled with educational influences and feel unprepared or lost. Swerdlow mentions that the students, who attend J.E.B. Stuart, are given many chances to improve their educational foundation in order to

Schools systematically subjugate minority and black students when a school’s enrollment contains a huge racial majority. If students have no exposure to persons of different ethnicities, cultures, races, and religions, then these students will experience culture shock when they confront “other” people. Even in our class, we talk about black and minority students as another group, one that differs from “us.” We think about the inequalities in school systems as problems we need to fix, not as problems that have influenced our thinking and affect us as prospective teachers. For example, a white graduate student with

I didn’t have to physically fight in school and I wasn’t subjected to overt racial discrimination. However, I was discriminated against on an institutional level by attending public school in Compton, CA and in a rural desert town in LA County called Lake Los Angeles. Demographically, Lake L.A. was mostly poor White but we were part of a wave of minorities that began moving there because of the cheap houses on large sections of land. There was limited access to rigorous curriculum and I remember not feeling engaged in school as a child. I was naturally curious and wanted to learn so I was always self-motivated and succeeded in school. However, there were very limited opportunities or access to college prep courses or Advanced/Honors sections of courses. I never even met with a high school counselor once. I was self-motivated enough to make sure I earned good grades in my classes but I had no idea what the application process for college was all about or what A-G electives were. I was caught up in a numbers game and I wasn’t one of the few who were given the additional resources and support needed to be prepared to attend a four year university right out of high

For generations African Americans have been disadvantaged in America and effects of these injustices have made a lasting impression. Education is one of the leading problems in the black community. Though there have many reforms in education over the years, racial injustices still exist because no attention in placed on how legislature affects people of color. I was raised in a middle-class family of educators. My entire life I’ve been told to “stay in school, get an education, and work hard so that you can beat the system.” Recognizing the structural forces in my life has helped me understand my place in society. Being able to “understand everyday life, not through personal circumstances but through the broader historical forces that

Journalist Alexandra Robbins ventures back to her old high school to examine the competitive efforts students are having to take to compete on the battlefield that is the education system in her book, The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids. Robbins explores the lives of multiple students who are stressed and pressured to maintain good grades and get into an Ivy League college. This text allows for intriguing insight on how the educational system has “spiraled out of control” and displays the different measures students must now take to be the best. Robbins’ The Overachievers is an eye-opening bestseller which exposes the social pressures and anxieties students must overcome in their high school lives as they attempt to impress and prove to colleges they are worthy of acceptance.

Growing up in Washington D.C. in an area with high poverty, STI and HIV rates, and low high school graduation rates, I was afforded an opportunity to attend a prestigious private school in Northern Virginia. While I was grateful to be able to receive a wonderful education in a safe environment, I always understood that many of my peers in the Black community did not have this privilege. Particularly, supportive faculty members encouraged me to pursue an accelerated math track so that I would be prepared when I pursued a STEM career. As I reached a high math level AP Calculus BC, I was one of five girls and the only black student in this course. I realized that as I pursued a career that requires high level math and science, due to educational disparities, my classroom’s racial and gender demographic will become my norm. Initially, I did not view this fact as a potential source of motivation to help bridge this gap. Instead, this observation led to loneliness, insecurity, and depression because no one else in the classroom innately related to me, not just in this math course, but for over 14 years in one school, the loneliness can become psychologically damaging. Yet, this damage was the cost of a invaluable education and the juxtaposition of emotional suffering and academic preparation allowed me to graduate top 10 in my graduating class in college.

In the novel, “A Hope in the Unseen” written by Ron Suskind explains the journey of Cedric Jennings from the Inner City to the Ivy League. Throughout his journey Cedric Jennings has had to navigate many challenges first at Ballou High School, then MIT in the summer, and finally at Brown University. During his High school career at Ballou he received many backlash from his peers because of his devotion to his studies. In Ballou High School, “the school’s dropout/transfer rate at nearly 50 percent, it’s understandable that kids at Ballou act as though they’re just passing through”(Suskind 3) but not Cedric. He had a determination like no other to succeed academically where he would often stay after to finish his homework and work on SAT practice

No one can take that away from me. The struggles and achievements we have made have shown me the resiliency that runs through my blood. The school I attend only strengthened that when I realized in freshman year that it was a microcosm of the racist America we live in today. Not even 4 months in a close friend of mine was harassed by a group of boys in their truck. They revved the engine at her and waved the confederate flag. It ran through the grapevine that current Northwest students called a friend of hers racial slurs outside of school before his freshman year even started. Everywhere I turned blatant racism stood and no one did anything about it. Outside of school police brutality took over cities and honestly I'm surprised at myself. I don’t feel hatred for America I feel disappointed. This is supposed to be the land of the free, but what limited freedom we truly have and it's all based on the color of our skin or income. The only thing I could do was push my word across. News traveled about my mind and my thoughts and next thing I know school news articles featured my thoughts and stance on the struggles I face. I found my voice. A power in myself I wouldn’t have found if it wouldn’t have been for a school’s negligence or a country’s ignorance. I found a voice that doesn’t only want to embrace and uplift my people, but people of color as well. I found my drive to teach and to better America in its quest to truly be the land of the

Growing up white, I never fell victim to racism or segregation, and sadly, I believe I was ignorant regarding these issues until I reached college. My sister and I were raised in the lower-middle-class by a single mom; But, we were fortunate to be born into a large family that has always supported each other in times of need. Being raised in the middle-class society, I never went without. My mother raised me in a nurturing way, but also believed in tough love in order to create a resilient young woman ready to tackle the world. Through my college education, I have recognized that I was born with white privileges that were given to me rather than something I earned. Coming from a large, tight-knit family, one of the most

To support this claim, we have Peter Stuyvesant’s testimony to the Dutch States General on why he lost the Dutch’s only colony in North America. Stuyvesant does not place the blame on himself and instead offers up the same reasons given to prove he was a good leader. Stuyvesant blames the lack of a defense force stating that it was incredibly difficult to raise a force of more than 250 men capable of baring arms as well as claiming that the fort of New Amsterdam looked like more of a “molehill” than a fortress. He blames the loss of the colony on the “impossibility to defend the fort, much less the city of New Amsterdam, and still less the country.” He also blames the citizenry due to their apathy and complete unwillingness to help Stuyvesant in almost any way.

For years, I struggled in an education system that only served to teach students of crime, where day by day, I would roam my high school hallways in search of peace, which I could only find in a few of my class rooms. I visited many schools during high school through a variety of programs that I was part of and through this I got to interact with students of more privileged high schools in New York City, where the Caucasian population was

Looming in front of me was something new, a fresh start. Despite being this, it seemed cold and trying, something that sent shivers down my spine. Mixed emotions of uncertainty and optimism had filled my first day of middle school; and as my final year is drawing to a close, I realize that this place-this transitional time in my life- is something that I never want to leave. I created a home away from home, and a family, over the short three years spent learning here. Each school year, from first to concluding, brought new experiences in which have altered my life. These are the things that I am hoping to carry over into high school-my next chapter. Every experience in which middle school has brought leaves me changed indefinitely, shaped for the future ahead.