At the age of 4 or maybe at 5? I can’t remember that far back but I know around this age I was dropped off at a new building with new people for the first time. My mom said I cried everyday for a month of pre-school. This happened for about the next 3 years of school. It seems as if I never enjoyed going to school. My mom and older sisters always reminded me how important school is and how it’s my only job until I become an adult. Yes it was true I didn’t care much for school except until I got to the 8th grade.
Although school in general isn’t my thing, the subjects I really struggled in back then, and a little now, were math, social studies, and science. My math and science teachers were always strict, not sure if that’s how all teachers of these subjects were. However thanks to their assertiveness I did alright in the classes. I did my work in class because I hated being put on the spot or yelled at by teachers and homework was done because I ran out of excuses often as to why they weren’t complete or done at all. My grades were average, sometimes below average and if present me had those grades I would be so disappointed. In my elementary school years I was an alright student. I wasn’t one of those students who never paid attention or disrupted the lessons. I loved my english periods, we would write our own stories never researched or had to do all these fancy formats. Reading is my favorite thing about school. Reading fun facts, reading stories, reading the scholastics paper and reading books would never bother me. The third grade is a year I can never forget. For starters I realized how odd the bathroom policies were but that’s not the only reason it’s so memorable. My third grade teacher has now passed away, his name was Mr. Lombyer. He had round eyeglasses, very thin light blonde hair always had brown boots or white sneakers, flannels year round. I don’t have a great memory but I can remember the feeling of the day. It was a Thursday and my class just had lunch and we were coming back from a short assembly. I asked my teacher if I could use the bathroom but his answer was no. I asked again in hopes he would say yes but he said no because we can use the bathrooms 10 minutes before or after the bell which made no sense. We got to our classroom and he did a headcount, as always to assure everyone was there, when suddenly I felt it. The worst feeling yet the best. I was scared to say anything so I ran to the bathroom which was right down the hall and into a stall. My best friend who is still my best friend to this day ran after me and she also called for the vice principal. She was a tall red haired slim woman who was very kind and she handled the situation thankfully. I noticed the same bathroom rules in highschool which i dislike very much and don’t understand.
In middle school a light bulb kind of lit up in my head telling me that i’m going to be in school for pretty much the majority of my life. Fifth grade was nothing special. I would usually score low on my tests and the projects were done poorly. I cared but I still did not have the motivation to do my very best. Throughout 6th and 7th grade I developed a dislike for english. In my essays I couldn’t receive more than a 2 which frustrated me. Yeah, frustrated me, someone who didn’t care much for the numerical grades just as long as they’re passing it was fine, was bothered. I felt annoyed as to why I couldn’t write as well as I was able to read. I never paid mind to grades but I wanted to know I could write well and only a higher grade could prove that. On the following essay I took into consideration all the corrections and suggestions my teacher wrote in bright pink ink from my other essay. I was hoping for a 2.5 a 3 if I got lucky but I got a 4! Now you’d think i would continue aiming for more 4’s but i went back to my mentality that a passing grade was a good grade. Not sure why but that’s how I have always thought about school.
Now 8th grade, possibly my favorite grade ever. When I entered 8th grade I was still in the mentality of a passing grade is a good grade. It was about 2 weeks into the year. I got to know the expectations of my teachers and the course. It seemed like another boring year at school. However this year was different because our class was able to vote on taking the regents class for math and science or taking the regular 8th grade class. When my homeroom teacher took the vote I was shocked to see so many hands in favor of taking the regents class, including mine. I still don’t know why I raised my hand. I was sure I would do so badly in the tests and the final exam but I wanted to try this challenge. We immediately got into covering the topics of the regents and I noticed the workload was a bit more than my friends in the regular class. English class and social studies was the regular class but I noticed it to be more challenging as well. Or was it that I was actually trying now that I noticed school was challenging. I took the algebra 1 and living environment regents class. My science teacher was a grumpy venezuelan man with a thick accent, very strict but if you did the work he praised you. I had a research project one time. He assigned us to break down the scientific method and show how scientists have used it. I chose Gregor mendel. His pea pod experiment captivated me how he could cross species, plant species. I learned so much in just this one project. I was excited to hand in my project and so happy when I got it back. This was a high grade for me this year on a project, I received a 95. I was so happy with the feedback and praise I received from my teacher. I continued to do well in his work and scored an 83 on the regents. Now my math teacher was the whole inspiration for this narrative. Her name is Mrs. Swiatek. I think her favorite color was green. She wore green makeup and clothes almost every day. She showed me the importance of not only math but about education in general. She was very strict, yes, making her classes stay after school for mandatory tutoring and not moving on to the next topic because one student didn’t understand it. She always pushed me specifically. I knew the formulas and the methods but she made me understand why we were doing these questions. Thanks to this teacher I scored a 91 on my regents, the highest score in all my years of school including highschool.
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