Author: Alethea Oquendo

colored hands painting for eng

There are plenty of students that want to finish school and get good jobs. But some teachers have this impression that students don’t care and they’re gonna drop out or not pursue anything else in life. They have these negative feelings about some students. School has shown me that many teachers aren’t really trying to help you. They just need you to pass their class so they don’t look bad. You just need to do what you have to do even if you have to teach it to yourself because your teachers aren’t doing their jobs properly. I know that there are teachers that do want to help kids mentally grow and want to see them succeed. But there’s teachers that tell kids that there will be nothing in life, that they’re going to fail and without school you have nothing in life. Some teachers don’t show you how to do it, they do it for you and expect you to know how to do it from that one way. Or they explain how to do it one way and when you don’t understand it’s your fault for not understanding what they taught instead of them changing the way they explained it. Some teachers think that students don’t want to learn or move on and pursue different things in life. But no one’s intentions are to fail in life, people fail and some stay down but many get back up. Telling students or people in general that they are never going to amount to anything because they failed one test isn’t going to make them want to grow in their education. Some people are able to take words that break them down and bring themselves up but many people are not built that way. One insult and they just shatter and they stay down and only keep that negative mindset.

                                    Artist Statement 

At first I wanted to do a horror story but I realized how hard it would be to even make a cliche. So I went with something else that would be a challenge so I did a painting. Hands are really hard to draw especially if you’re trying to draw expressions in them. Trying to do different positions for hands to point in one direction was surprisingly time consuming, because they all have to point to one area and not look too similar in the pose they’re doing. You have all these hands reaching out going towards the same thing, they are racing for the same goals. The goal was to show that everyone has things that they want to achieve and move forward and up in their lives. No one wants to fail on purpose and not do anything in life intentionally. Improving yourself in education could help you get better job opportunities. I did a painting because I thought I would be able to portray that people are all aiming and going in one direction to a similar goal of improving themselves through education or in life in general. I used charcoal sticks for the black and gray hand, pastel sticks for the red, pink, green and purple hand, and acrylic for the blue hand and background. 

       The most important thing that the education system has taught me was timing and not to group myself with everyone else. When I first started high school I was told to follow the crowd, so I physically did that in a sense of not getting lost in the building but I would find myself lost because I wasn’t taught how to navigate the building properly. I was taught to follow other people who knew what and where they were going. So when I saw that this approach wasn’t working I started to learn where my classes and teachers were by myself. I had to learn how to apply that to my life. I also had to learn that things aren’t going to fall into your lap and you can’t always rely on someone else to tell you where to go. 

       My sister was basically my other mother, that was the role that was given to her, I was completely dependent on her like a toddler. I would treat my education the same way I needed someone to spell it out for me to understand, instead of trying to figure it out myself with some help. I basically wanted them to do it for me because that’s what I was used to. I say this because I just stopped being so codependent about 5 years ago, I slowly had to get away from that to get and do my own responsibilities. Teachers aren’t going to do everything for you because they aren’t always going to be there to babysit you. 

       Timing has always and still is a big problem for me. I started showing up on time by myself in high school in 11th grade. For some people that may not seem like such a big thing, but for me because I’m so forgetful, and irresponsible, getting to school on time was a big hurdle for me to jump over. I’m still tackling my work and handing it in on time. In middle school I either didn’t do it or handed it in on time. I did the same in highschool but it was more on time then not doing it. When I got to college I realized that I had to do it on time and everything was also more time consuming. I have to set timers for my whole week. Although many teachers let you put it in late, that still affects you because you’re not going to get the full grade you could get if you did it on time. 

       There are so many people that have had terrible experiences with education whether it was because of the teachers, students or family. If they didn’t get good enough grades they would be punished and some get harsh punishments by family members. I just got this stare and it was enough for me. I never spoke up so I never really had a teacher target me, except in 6th grade. I don’t remember what happened but my teacher didn’t like me because if I were ever to do something wrong in school I got a speech from my mom. That form of discipline was good for me, but my teacher assumed that I would get beat and it seemed that’s what she wanted because when that didn’t happen she had a problem with everything I did and continued to hold this weird grudge towards me for the remainder of middle school. Not to downplay what I went through, but there are many people who do go through worst experiences and it mentally and physically affects them throughout their entire lives. 

       Knowing that learning was hard for me because I was a little behind, not enough to get extra help or more attention, but to a point where I needed to pay attention a little more. Writing things down helps me learn and remember things so much better. English was always the harder subject for me, me not liking to read made it harder to focus on books, my handwriting was barely legible, my spelling is just sad, and my vocabulary still needs to be worked on. Comparing myself from a few years ago although all that still needs work, it has gotten better. I never treated school seriously, I only needed to pass with a 65 to 75 and that was okay for me. But as I grew up and was picking my colleges I realized how important grades were and how they affected me. I was told that they were super important and was told that they weren’t, there were ways around it. I’m now payin the price for treating school so lazily and or secondary because I hated to read and now that hate has caused me to stay at a certain level. This helped me realize that I needed to make my own decisions and do what was better for me, for the version of the person that I want to become.