Category: Unit 1

Through out my grade school years, I’ve never once really had to try very hard to do well in my classes. Whether it be english, math, or science, everything just made sense to me, and I never really had to try hard in any of these classes. If I had an exam, I’d just sit down, cruise through my notes for about 30 minutes the day prior, take my exam and get an guaranteed B+ at worst. I don’t want to make this seem like I’m bragging, but it lays down a background to where I’m coming from.

This changed when I took my AP Bio class. All the AP sciences were notorious for being very difficult. However, me being me, and having passed my general bio class with flying colors, didn’t expect the class to be very difficult at all. Boy, was I wrong. On the day before my first exam in that class, I did my usual routine of briefly skimming through my notes for a few minutes and got ready to sleep. On the day of the exam, I remember feeling good, and when I got the exam, my mind went blank. None of the materials I had studied for stuck in my head and all the questions were so much more detailed than I had expected. I’ve never finished an exam feeling this terribly before. When I got my results back, I was taken aback by the low exam score, even though I knew I had done very poorly on the exam.

I felt terrible but I thought maybe this exam was an exception, and I repeated the same thing for my next exam. As expected, I did poorly on this exam as well. I kept up the same thing up until the after the midterm. My overall average in the class was probably around the 60s, and it was then I finally realized that if I kept this up, I might fail the class and not receive credit. Starting then, my attitude in the class changed completely and I began to act like a proper student, studying nightly and slowly but steadily building up my knowledge in that class. I remember the night before my next exam, I actually felt prepared and didn’t have a feeling of impending doom from failure.

I took my exam the next day, and actually felt good after finishing the exam. When I received my grade and saw that I had passed with flying colors, I was so relieved. I remember feeling very proud of myself actually. This was the turning point of changing my studying habits. I kept up my efforts in the class and ended up doing well on my subsequent exams as well as passing the AP exam with a 4!

With the upcoming assignment of the education narrative coming up it forces me to be a lot more reflective of the many years passed. It is a bit hard for me to really try and pull out anything that seems too relevant to my view of education. I remember times of when I would mess around with my friends in middle school during what we had as a club period. It was a photography club where hanging out in open areas of the school came before the actual photography portion of the club. There was a really cool time where I was a part of a group project where we conceptualized a mobile app that we would present in a competition. We spent a day in an office building and we sat in a small office brainstorming which felt almost genuine in the setting.

There is one event I remember that stuck with me even to now though. I had been in the same school from kindergarten to 8th grade as the elementary and middle school was integrated. I don’t really know how this was, but I had managed to establish myself as one of the smartest students in my grade. I was even well known by the staff and students around the school too whether it was because I had been in a class with them or participated in a school event that exposed me to more people. Essentially, I was known as THE smart kid and one of the best. Although all throughout my life I never felt too special, more like I’m just doing what I’m told and taught just somehow better than others. I just saw myself as mediocre.

One time in 8th grade however, this one thing happened that I still don’t know how to feel about. It was the first day in my math class and we were doing a fundamentals check of simple math except there was a curveball thrown in. I can’t say I really remember what it was in particular, but what had happened was that no one knew how to get it or at least was unsure. Me on the other hand, I got it and I knew exactly how as well. When the teacher sat and asked me how it was I got it I simply answered how. Now this teacher had my sister and brother in his class before and was expecting to see me sooner or later, but what he did was so strange to me. He actually took my paper and went to the door and yelled into the hallway that I was a star. I had done the same thing so many times before, but this time I was quite literally being called out because of it. I don’t know how I was supposed to take it, it was embarrassment of course, but more than that confusion. Was it really so special, how was I so special? I found myself in high school to be exceedingly mediocre as I had always seen myself, but I couldn’t help feel like I was sort of letting myself go to waste. I’ve come to a realization over time though that no one can just stand out and I think that I have sufficiently accepted mediocrity in it all