Category: Unit 1 (Page 3 of 26)

I was at home, the weather was like 40°-60°. The air was fresh. The days were actually really nice. It was during covid, but during my senior year. I still had online classes, I had the option to choose. It was during the end of winter and spring when I was realizing I was really about to graduate and go to college. I was happy to be taking AP Calculus because I LOVE MATH. I wasn’t taking school serious but I always tried my best to get a high grade in math. It was like the only class I ever cared about. Light came from my window and my LED lights. I was sitting in my bed, or maybe I was laying down. My tv was off and there was no noice. I was probably trying to finish an assignment. It was probably also last minute. What I had in front of me was the laptop that the school let me burrow. Next to me a bunch of papers with lists of assignments I had to do. Each labeled by subject. But of course I did my math assignments first. I was never good at English or Science or social studies. I actually never passed my global regents even after taking it 4 times. I would try so hard to pay attention and I even went in for extra help during lunch and nothing helped. Oh well I still hate social studies. And English too.
      During these days all I did was be in bed and do my assignments. Everyday felt the same. Lol I sound so depressing but it was. Anyways, that led to a lot of thinking. Wondering what I wanted to do in life. During my senior year I actually good pretty good grades. I forgot what was the point of this assignment. The reason I decided to go to college was because it’s the “right” thing to do. I don’t actually wanna be here lol. I don’t think school is for me but I’m still trying regardless and I’ll be coming to class everyday.

I can still remember my first semester of sixth grade. That fall feeling of light orange leaves on the ground and the crunch noise made when you stepped on them, typical hoodie season , cool breeze which would eventually turn into jacket wearing brick season later down the line of the fall semester. First day was a day of anticipation in the air to find out who’s got the same classes as you  and who the new teachers would be like. Then the first week is full of introductions to teachers, the material and of course your classmates, the people you’d spend your semester with. Earlier classes were easy to get through although I would not care and fool around with my boys every now  and then. I still can remember the scent of jolly ranchers that would hit you once you entered the science room. Mr. P always had a bowl of jolly ranchers for students to grab ONE. Mr. P,  off the bat was different from most teachers as he didn’t teach the way other teachers would teach. Every Monday he would give us 10 mins to setup our Cornell notes for the week. Cornell notes were so cool to me because it made note taking cool. I wasn’t just writing whatever the teacher wrote on the board but little bullet points of what I understood from the slide. Mr. P would play ball with us during our lunch break, he would later on be our basketball coach along side the P.E teacher and he ran the Lego robotics after school I would eventually enroll in. As the seasons changed, the Sun wouldn’t set till like eight, jackets turned to simple longsleeves, after school ball at the park was frequent, my spring semester of sixth grade started, I guess I got too comfortable around Mr, P since I would just fool around in science class and not care thinking him and I were cool. He wouldn’t call me out on my behaviour, right? Instead of saying “I’ll have a chat with your parents on the phone later today” like most teachers would say, he would threaten to kick me off the basketball team or robotics program if I kept fooling around. This kept me in check in his class only. The following year during the spring semester, my teachers would tell me to do work or else they’d let Mr. P know about my misbehavior. This would actually lead me to do work and take notes in every class with the Cornell note taking format. My grades would only rise from that point on.

Throughout my whole school life,  Mr. P was the one only teacher that was able to control my behavior and actual had me invested into his class. Today I can look back and be real with myself, I was a mess of a student in my early years. I wouldn’t like me if I were my teachers.  His Cornell note taking format is a writing skill I use to this day. Although nowdays it is harder since I have some classes online others in person. High school was rough since I did hang around the wrong crowd for the most. One thing that did stay consistant throughout my time of high school pre covid, was my note taking ability. Although I still was a distraction in some classes throughout my two years, and a half, of high school, my teachers always praised my notes I would take. Specifically my Global History teacher, who was intrigued with my notes and how I neatly categorized title of the sldies shown on the smart board with a simple bullet point I thought of the readings. Teachers from IC3 digital literacy to my forensics teacher liked my note taking. All thanks to a middle school science teacher, Mr. P.  My final year and a half of high school was all online, so I had to type my notes which wasn’t the same. Now that I’m in college and taking this English course, I’m hoping to use that format of note taking when possible.

During my 2 years at high school I lost an imporant figure in Mr. P, he did push me to be great academically and made sure I did work. Entering high school I lost that. During the early lockdown phase I would mediate a lot since I had nothing to do. During this time I had time to reflect on my high school experince. My act went back to a distraction in high school since Mr. P was out of the picture in my life. But high school was a fun experince in my eyes since I was hanging around with any crowd. I entered high school without knowing anyone since all my middle school peers all chose diffferent schools. Since Mr. P wasn’t here I went back to fooling around in classes and this somehow made me find friends. It was fun just jumping around the mixing pot of personalities and characters I would meet my 2 years of high school. I had my main circle of friends but for the most part I knew anyone in all of my classes I had. When my teacher in any class was absent and a sub was in charge, I’d sign in and walk down to the cafeteria, doesn’t matter what period lunch it was, I would always dap (handshake)  up anyone I knew. What I’d notice is a lot of people with a hall pass down in the cafeteria chilling all period long till the bell rings. They’d basically cut class the whole period while their teacher probably had the idea that their student went to the bathroom the whole period. Summer before junior year was a time I thought to myself, this is it, this year will reflect on what college you’ll enter, what your future will be. So my fall semseter of junior year I did amazing grades wise. No skipping, no lates, and all work done. I felt great heading into my spring semester but before the first week covid hit and I lost my chance at great in person work.

The educational system in my particular school was messy to say the least. Fights were an event daily, you’d be chilling in Spanish class when all of a sudden you get a text telling you to come down to the cafeteria, there’s a fight. You’d raise your hand, go to the ‘bathroom’ and head to the cafeteria to see what’s going on. High school compared to middle school for me was wild. My middle school was filled with mostly white folk who were on the wealthier side of things. My mom enrolled me there thinking it’d be good for me, even though at times I felt left out since they always had cool stuff and new sneakers while I only had a pair for the whole school year. But in high school it was mostly black and hispanic. Sure you had asian, white, arab ethnicites, but majority was black and hispanic. In high school I felt like I fit in. These were students like me in a sense. But I quickly caught on that in a high school with the majority being minority, there was a lack of technology, and my high schoool was supposed to be technical. My middle school had iPads, Macbooks and iMacs in every class. Whereas high school only had desktops in the computer lab. The difference in tools for students to use was noticable. My time reflecting during lockdown made me realize many in high school just didn’t care or were aware that they are lucky to have education while other kids around the world don’t have what we have. Instead we only care about fights in the staircase, cafeteria or after school. I was able to reflecting on my misbehavior and I took online classes serious although not many showed up to zooms. I stayed consistant although it was hard sometimes with WiFi connections and you just miss being in a class room.

It’s a warm fall day in September. It was the second week of school when everyone got their schedules, and I am going over mine with my friend to see if we have some of the same classes, but it was only for two classes. One was math, and another was programming class. We both never had a problem with math, so we were fine with that, but programming was something we never did before. I thought it was going to be another class that I have to sit through and just do the work. I was sitting in class and listening to the teacher talk about what the class is going to be and the things we will do in this class. So far is going how the other classes went and I am not very interested right now. The next day in class he tells us to take out the computers so we can get to programming.At first nobody knew what to do because he didn’t teach us anything yet. After nobody knew what to do so my teacher says play with it for 10 minutes and I do. I try to see what I can do. I start playing with it and made the program to make multiple squares repeatedly. My teacher notices this and tells us that time is up. I wanted to keep going but he said he wanted to show us something important. I didn’t know what to expect, my teacher opened up his computer and showed us what he was doing in the 10 minutes he gave us. He made a program that makes it look like stars twinkling in the galaxy and I was impressed with it because he was able to be creative with what little time he had. Two weeks had passed, and I was becoming more and more interested in in the programming class, but my grades didn’t show it. I wasn’t doing with the homeworks I was given because of laziness. So, after class I had my programming teacher wanted to speak with me.I was really nervous because I knew what he wanted to talk about, but I didn’t want to talk about it.Before we talked about my grades, he asked me what I wanted to do in life. At the time I didn’t know the answer to that question, so I said I don’t know. When he heard my response, he asked another question which what was is something you like to do. I told him I like to play games and that I liked programming. He said he was going to show me something on his laptop and when i went to see it was a soccer game he made. Then he said that he found something he wanted to do in life by doing something he enjoys doing. He also said you can’t have a goal without having some tough times, these are your tough time. Learn to be able to do everything you need to do first before you focus on one thing. To quote his word he said “Schools and teachers like me are here to make students who they need to become “after that he made time during his lunch to give me a study room quiet time so I can do the other classes work.I was able to do better with the time that he has given me but it wasn’t enough.I was still falling behind from my other classmates.I was starting to worry that I just wasn’t a smart enough student to pass the grade.

During my  the year my parent teacher conference was coming up and I didnt want to go mostly because of the grade and I didnt want my parents to see that but unfortunately they already knew that I had one.On the car ride their my parents kept asking me why was I nervous and is there something that I need to be worried about.I felt like they already knew about my grade but they wanted to hear it from my voice themselves but I told them that their shouldn’t be anything to worry about.The more closer I got to the school the more nervous I was and finally we get to the school to meet my teachers.First it was my English teacher mostly because they wanted to hear from her first mostly do to that the class I have the most trouble in.Everything I expected to hear came true.She talked about how I wasn’t getting the best grade from my work and how I would get distracted in the middle of class which led to me not doing the best with my classwork either.I could tell that my parents wanted to find out the reason behind this so I told them I just get uninterested in doing writing work and that causes me to lose my train of thought when trying to do work.After that it was my social studies teacher.i was better with social studies rather than english so it wasn’t as bad.He mostly said the same thing as the social studies teacher which was I get distracted in class.My parents asked the same question again and I gave her the same response.Finally we get to my programming teacher.I wasn’t to nervous with him but he gave my parents a response I didn’t expect.He told them the same thing the other teachers said.I thought to myself what I did wrong but he told me to let him finish what he was saying.He said that he’s making an attempt to do better in his class but that I should do what I do with him with the other teachers.He says once they see you trying to do better in their class you can see the improvement in your grades.After that he said he was gonna make me a deal.I will keep doing my work in his class as study hours but i must also do the same with the other teachers to prove that i’m actually trying to be a better student.I said sure at first because my parents was there but after thinking about it more I realized it was gonna be hard for me mostly because I didnt really talk to other teachers besides him.The next day at lunch I tried to give it a chance I went to my social studies teacher for a week and the more I went the more nicer the teacher seemed and the easier the work has gotten.The same was said about the english class but it took me three weeks to be better.Of course I wasnt the best but I did make improvemnt with my grades and felt proud about it as well.