Myself As a Student
School overall is a challenging experience no matter how you put it. It could be the best or worse twelve plus years of any one's life. A time I reminisce about and finally came to a conclusion to write about would have to be about my junior high school years. It was a frightening transition from elementary school to junior high school. As a child, I really did not know how to handle certain situations, so it was pretty difficult for me because everything was new to me; the people, the school, everything. I can say as a twenty-three year old college student, that I am completely different than how I was back then in middle school. For example, I was picked on everyday in school and I did not know how to defend myself and an experience like that I kept to myself all those years. I now thankfully do not go through that kind of mistreatment anymore and if any case I would know how to defend myself and how to handle that situation. Not only that but I have matured since then and have come to realize over the years that I am getting older and have priorities as an adult and college student. Right now, school is my main concern and my number one priority.
My middle school had a variety of races, for example, Caucasian, Hispanic, Black, etc. I feel schools that have wide variety of races are more positive and have less racial issues amongst students. Schools like the one I attended believe in diversity which is extremely important and essential in New York City public schools. That is so because, students can get the sense of equality and understand that everyone is different in their own ways which is acceptable. Middle school was a tough experience for me. I was not exactly an honor roll student and back then school was not something that I really enjoyed period. In all my years of education I was always proficient in the subject of English and had immense difficulties in Mathematics; this still applies today. My highest point in school was when I participated in a middle school play called "Peter and the Wolf", which had the storyline of the well known children's story, "Little Red Riding Hood". I luckily received the part of the main character Peter. That was an exciting, yet challenging experience for me as a student. I had to not only continue concentrating in school, but also remember my lines in time for the date of the play. I felt important being the main character and felt like all eyes were on me because I was the star of the play. I am glad the play was a success and I performed wonderfully.
My interests have not changed from then to now, I still enjoy reading, writing, and listening to music. I spent most of my days doing that and not only did I read and write a great deal in school, I also engaged in my favorite hobbies on my spare time.
In school, individuals have their favorite and least favorite teachers throughout their entire education. I, on the other hand have had wonderful experiences with the majority of my teachers. Every one of my teachers have been strict, yet kind to each one of their students. There is a difference between excellent teaching and horrible teaching, whichever way will effect the students a teacher is teaching. A negative occasion I clearly remember was with my eight grade Math teacher, Ms. C. Not only did she yell at her students but she called us insulting names on multiple occasions. I remember it so clearly because that was one of the most complex and worse experiences of my life. All the students who had that teacher would let her know that she was out of hand. It was so bad that she was reported to the principle of the school and she was eventually fired from her position as an eight grade Math teacher. Her teaching skills were not sufficient, she would speed up the teaching of the material everyday, would not leave a window for questions for new and old material, and would not produce feedback for her students to help them get better in a subject that they might not have been good at. On the upside, one of favorite teachers was my sixth grade English teacher, Mrs. P. She cared a great deal about her students and did whatever she could to assist to her students. Regardless of the her life outside of school, like, being pregnant, having a husband, she made us one of top priorities. From the first day of our freshman year of junior high school she told us what her intentions were and that she would be there for us whenever we needed her. One of the positive reinforcements she had available was that she asked each of us to buy a composition notebook and that would be our journals for the year. In these journals, the students would be able to write what we did, what we want to do in the future, our experiences were for the day, anything we were thinking at that particular moment, our struggles with whatever, like school or certain subjects, and whatever we wanted to write about to her. She would read them everyday and have them ready for the next school day; read and respond back to them. The students really loved her and her teaching. What she did for her students was so heroic because she mentored and facilitated conversations as much as she could with her students. In the future, it would be an honor to repeat and relive the strategies she used for my prospective students. I feel this strategy for teaching and also counseling was very effective.
A very sensitive topic that I have not discussed or spoken about with anyone was that I was unfortunately made fun of my three years in middle school and my first year of high school. Those were one of the most terrifying, lonely, and, undeniably embarrassing moments of my life. I would wake up in the morning and just feel so down, not wanting to wake up and go to school. In school, I would try to avoid the people that would torment me but we were in the same grade and we had the same classes. Everyday, I couldn't wait to hurry home and lock myself in my room. There I would just cry myself to sleep and wake up and do it all over again the next day. I never spoke to anyone about my situation and just kept it bottled in all my life. I would have never thought I would go through something that horrible like I did, and am so grateful that it ended in my freshman year of high school. I read so many books, articles, and have seen tons of news coverages on television about students bullying other students to the point where they refuse to live any longer and want hurt themselves. Thankfully, I knew that life was too precious to end so soon and it would have been selfish of me to leave this world. That for me was the lowest point in school. Bullying is something that I nor many individuals do not tolerate and hate hearing about. I absolutely dislike hearing about situations like that because it comes from personal experience. I have learned from those experiences and would use them to prevent students from bullying other students in school as a prospective educator.
That was myself as a student in junior high school.
