Category: Discussions

The moment I was born I instantly became the betting horse of my immigrant family to do what they couldn’t and that meant finishing all forms of school. My parents put all their trust on a child who looked for them for everything to be what they thought they couldn’t be, successful. Unfortunately for my parents my inability to focus on a thing for longer than a few minutes cost me my grades and developed bad study habits. Parent teacher conferences were a mixture of “she’s a great student, attentive and an active participant” to “she has potential to be a good student”, my mom stopped going after a few years as she knew exactly what she was going to hear. Being young and unaware made me susceptible to the idea that I lacked the intelligence to become someone grand and inevitably disappointing my parents. Now in my later years I comprehend that the system is made with only one student in mind and us as students and parents we must find methods to make it work. Comparable to a pre-made mold where some of us don’t fit we must bend and break to fit into it.

My mom has always been my biggest supporter and critic, criticizing my grades, my lack of concentration, and anything in between. I know she was doing the best she could with the little knowledge she had, me being the first child she must have felt lost. She would force me into afternoon programs and clubs hoping I would stick to something, inevitably making my school day 3-4 hours longer. Anything I would show remote interest she had already found 3 programs I could get into, thus allowing me to choose what kind of high school I wanted to go into. My mom’s love of cooking consequently provoked me to choose a culinary program focused high school. A whole new world for the both us  it introduced me into a different kind of education, one focused in my needs.  A mixture of growing up and trust allowed my mom’s grip on me to lessen and allowed me to truly chose what I could immerse myself in. My freshman year of high school introduced me to a man that changed my views on the education system.

Tough love isn’t anything foreign to me, I mean I have very traditional hispanic parents it’s an everyday occurrence. My first culinary teacher was as strict as any chef you see on TV, unforgiving and not lenient. One of my clearest memories of him involved me being late to his class and getting a 10 minute lecture in front of my classmates on poor time management. Safe to say I was never late to his class again. While he had a tough exterior and seemed unkind, his demeanor would unravel the moment you demonstrated respect and passion for the craft. Between constant class participation and successful recipe replicas I became one of his top students. Developing a relationship with a teacher in your favorite subject to me is more impactful than most friendships made in school. He connected me with outside programs and internship opportunities to help grown my connections in the culinary world. His class helped me solidify that I wanted my career to be culinary centered. I began to learn that the education system might not have been made with people like me in mind but with the right people and motivation I could mold it into what I wanted to. I had the privilege in choosing a school that closely resembled the career path I was choosing and made school not seem a chore. School had always felt like a place I went because I had to and in that year it turned into a place where I went to learn and gain opportunities I couldn’t have had without it.

As a preteen I believed it was me against the world and I had no one to lean on that could understand me. Being in a system that only measured me based on old methods of teaching and a rubric grading system I always felt incomplete. Finding a support system within that made me feel valid and allowed me to realize that the mold I had subjected myself was malleable. Finding a professor or two that guided me and assisted me was the help I didn’t realize I needed to preserve during school. I still believe the education system is broken, and only works for a select few students who are able to grasp everything in one attempt. Leaving the others with feelings of incompetence and lost as to how to be on the same level as their peers. I know we as students have the power to change how the system treats us and chooses to guide us. Introducing peers and teachers that can support us and guide us in the journey of education really is the key.

       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.

 

An experience that changed my views on education was my month on U.S.A, the way how teacher tread us, the way how they teach, everything was extremely different from my view of school.

The educational concept from China and USA are different, We only cares about the grade that shows on the test, the score means all. Teacher only wants grade, parents only wants grade, because of that brainwashing education, I used to study like a machine, only put things in my brain, take out when exam coming, I don’t even know what’s the purpose of those thing in my mind, but just for getting a good grade。

At U.S.A, once I was in classroom, the teacher called me for a question, I give her the exactly the same thing from the textbook. But she asked: I know that’s the answer, but this is from the textbook, I want your answer, use your own words to say it. At that time, my English wasn’t really good, I can only get a few words from what she said, so I thought she didn’t hear clearly, so I repeated my answer . She probably figured that I couldn’t understand her, so she asked the other Chinese student to translate for me, after that she asked me again, but  I couldn’t really give one since never try to integrate the knowledge in to my own things , so I said I don’t know, she didn’t embarrass me, but asked me to have my own answer next time. So I start to make knowledge in to my own things, try to understand it, and use my own way to say, describe it ,use in the real world…