School all the way from Pre-K to 12th grade is like a rollercoaster starting in a pit from Hell that you try to dig yourself out off for approximately 14 years desperately trying to reach Heaven. It has its ups and downs along with twists and turns with a proposition that is determined by your overall performance. That performance may shape a possible big part of your future: will you ‘live’ in a sense that is worth living or continue on as a dead man walking. From my perspective, I came out with a mixture of both. I learned that education has an overall natural trade system for you give the system something, and it will give you back something in return in a 50-50 scenario that can benefit you or cost you for a specific amount of time that can last for a few days to weeks or a few months to years. Results are summed up in school chapters: elementary school, middle school, and high school. Here are my results from this controversial topic called ‘education system’.

Chapter I: Elementary (Pre-K – 5)

Naturally around this age of your life, you don’t think too much about the bigger things of life. Or you probably don’t think at all but instead on how to have fun while doing the smallest amount of work. My memory of educational achievements and setbacks around elementary is fuzzy thus the evidence of most preferring joy and puerility around this stage of life. But one thing I learned during this period is that I can be merciless in the face of chance which is effective but has some costs. Pre-K to 4th grade, I was in public school where I had an overall good time. Work was rarely a issue and neither was social interaction. I was a intelligent for that time because I would read a lot albeit it was often forced on me. I was also pretty popular amongst my peers because I had a unique personality that attracted most people cause of the way I could joke and carry relevant conversations with sense of logic. For teachers, it was, in retrospective, brown nosing which was more important. Elementary teachers talk down to all their students like babies and I spotted this. To make sure I would mostly be accepted by teachers, I would join in and scold my peers in a way that the teacher approved which gained their respect. I did not mean to necessarily brown nose but to get back at peers who I felt wronged me. However this benefited me in the future for the teachers viewed me in a positive way and I received better grades. I learned that brown nosing was beneficial amongst adults but consequential for me in a way cause a student would possibly hold animosity towards me. It was a choice I indirectly made but I didn’t acknowledge this at the time because of how young I was. Fortunately, I had yet to have a good reason to care. In the middle of 4th grade, I transferred to private school, a moment in my life I view as a bait-and-switch. The environment and quality of teachers and students was different to the point my brown nosing technique that I was not aware of would no longer be necessary as the teachers seemed to be more lenient but also more strict on moral and religious matters. In fact it probably would be more consequential as the ‘snitch’ label grew more dangerous on a peers’ social reputation thus the end of of the effectiveness of brown nosing. In the meantime, I simply did my work and that was it for this part of the chapter. I used whatever means to get by with work without care and it worked. I was blind to people’s wants and did whatever I had to do for me which was effective. Looking back at elementary, I understand that if you set a goal, big or small, and seek it mercilessly, it’s almost guaranteed to accomplish it. But I also learned that accomplishing goals will always spark discontent and bitterness to some viewers which has potential risks. Unfortunately, I did not adapt my merciless mentality or implement a new style to benefit myself at a time where my environment was different. This signaled imminent Hell that started in 5th grade that I was oblivious too. Because of my inability to balance work and socialization as well as lack of awareness, my vulnerability was now exposed and soon exploited.

Chapter II: Middle school (6 – 8)

Middle school is around a time students become more enlightened and physical changes to their body may start, so I would believe it is a time to grow and study emotional bonding do’s and don’ts as well as goals post middle school. However, for me, middle school was a labyrinth that contained bullying and exploitation at the sense of my vulnerability that took me not only years to escape from, but is still taking me years to fully understand in retrospective to this day. It was a overall a Hellish and scarring experience that is painful to recap. To recall educational wisdom I’ve attained from time is hard for me to say because my equilibrium to receive a clear mindset was disrupted from frequent antagonism, but if there is any shred of wisdom I can give from this experience, no matter how obvious it may seem, is if you reveal your talents, people who acknowledge them will seek to exploit them for their own benefit then disregard you when you are no longer useful. After nearly being held back in the 5th grade and barely saving myself because of my score in social studies, I discovered I had I a knack for English and History which helped me get by and avoid grade retention. But what I didn’t discover is that this ‘knack’ was being exploited amongst peers that did not care about me but themselves. In times where I could not provide the help my classmates wanted, I received backlash in the form of ridicule or bullying. Other times, people would use this talent as a way to belittle me as a joke, which unfortunately was found amusing by students. It was a lose-lose scenario. This treatment caused me to hate who I am and lose self-respect. What dignity I had was long gone only to be replaced with emotional insecurity and depression thus I was a pariah. But this scar that I still carry gave me a beneficial drive that is still active: to live life for myself and the way how I do it is by exercising my physically and mentally. At the time, I had a decent amount of brain, but lacked brawn. After being slapped full force from behind while silently reading a book by a frequent antagonist, the feeling stayed with me internally and I wanted to make a change. After about a year and a half from that incident, I started going to a MMA gym (I still attend it to this day) where I got fit and learned techniques to defend myself. In fact, I fell in love with it to the point I wanna get in the ring and compete one day. Ever since I stepped through that door, I feel a greater sense of pride and a little more emotional security. Despite middle school digging deep into my mental scars that I still carry today such as anxiety and insecurity, it gave me a sense of awareness of how to spot a bad spirit and helped me discover a lifestyle that gives me a reason to live: combat sports. Now that I gained these abilities better myself, I was lacking in something important which I did not notice that I would discover during high school.

Chapter III: High school (9-12)

When I entered High school, I disregarded common tropes. For example, I didn’t believe freshmen were targets for the higher grades to beat on, but viewed it as a fresh start with a fresh opportunity. This opportunistic enthusiasm did not last for I started believing a lot of the material was being forced down everybody’s throat as well as some classes not being necessary for everybody. For me, it was algebra which does not help me for my future goals in a significant way. I also despised taking the state regents but I wouldn’t let work hold me down so I accepted it and pushed through. This detail taught me that the education system is one dimensional because it leans more in favor towards a specific style of learning that is benefits only a small group of learners while also excluding other types of intellectuals. The difference with pushing through High school is I didn’t need to be merciless like I was in Elementary, just more cunning and adaptive. I felt whatever happened in my past that was negative would not affect me because now I considered myself fully capable to handle not just the classwork, but a scrap with another peer, something I wished I was capable of back in middle school. I deemed this satisfying enough in the beginning for the time because nobody cared about who I was until I started fighting back. This is a belief I now deem as misguided from retrospect. There were times I ruminated about my past abuse (unfortunately I still do). For the majority of my life all I did was survive and endure, but recently I traded surviving for fighting. Wishing I could have done something different to better myself in the past, I now saw I had my chance to make it reality. During the beginning of freshman year, I saw signs of the treatment I was receiving in middle school amongst boys in my gym class whom I shared my schedule with in other classes. I came up with a misguided solution: solidify a reputation by using my fists to prevent that abuse from reoccurring by displaying my fighting abilities through a few brawls in the locker room that was seen by few, then gossiped by all. I was satisfied by the recognition because this is something that would have most likely benefited me years prior but something was off. Later down the road, my impulsiveness ended up with me receiving a 2-day principal suspension after an altercation in my favourite class freshman, Economics. This event made me more internally aggressive while also making me stand against NYC High School’s Zero Tolerance policy, but it was all fruitless to be upset the way I was looking back at it. Despite all this, Freshmen year was my favourite high school year but it was not until 11th grade where I started noticing the cracks of myself that I underestimated. I saw looking at my previous years that I was impulsive and had too many chips on my shoulder from previous grievances but I did not care to find out why so I tried to swallow my pain away and move on. This failed me spiritually because I was more emotionally hurt than ever in recent memory. I implemented two types of coping mechanisms to heal from my past scars and grievances, without realizing at the time, which was building a reputation from fighting then I tried to bury my emotions. Both failed and made my mood worse. This failure taught me that I need to forgive myself and others who wronged along with accepting my previous history instead of trying to fight what is done and what I cannot control. Instead of building a ‘tough guy’ persona who’s emotionless, I needed a catharsis which is what I am still in progress at this time.

Epilogue

In the beginning, I stated that the education system is a natural trade system for what you give holds a 50-50 chance of either positive or negative. What I gave to this system through 14 years for whatever it holds, is potential along with persistence, vulnerability, fortitude, hunger, demotivation hatred, kindness and endurance. In return, the educational system gave me chance along with success, failure, happiness, depression, friends, foes, anxiety and wisdom. Both positive and negative, some results are short-lived whereas others are still in affect. Throughout those 14 years, my positive traits grew into being smart, empathetic, open-minded, philosophical and less vulnerability. As for consequences it fueled my anxiety, gave me insecurity, and exposure to depression. Post High school, I came out overall physically fit and intelligent with potential be something great and unique in my future so I chose the route to excel in growth through college. Now that I have mostly escaped from that pit, I hope college grants me the sense of absolution. What I seek from college is something I believe is rare to achieve in grades Pre-K -12 grade: a catharsis for the weight I carry that came from school. Grade school lacks emotional support which allows a constant cycle of bullying and discontent to occur among students. This cycle can impede emotional connections that can lead to a permanent stunt of internal growth for future adulthood. If I could change anything about grade school, it is to implement more counselors to teach all students about sympathy, emotional connection and communication so future students do not have to endure the pain I went through as well as others.