When I was chosen to speak tonight, I thought that as a track athlete it would be appropriate to compare life to a race. Life is a race, a race to each milestone in our lives. Kindergarten through fifth grade we had just entered ourselves into the race called education. We were about to test our strengths and find our weaknesses. The first day of kindergarten we weren't exactly sure what we were in for. Some of us began to write our names and learn to read, while others ate Elmer's glue and pulled little girls' pigtails -- you know who you are. Middle school was our warm-up and preparation. We stretched ourselves to meet new people and some of them are still sitting next to us today. Our crackling voices and newfound interests in the opposite sex who we usually met at the Skate Deck, distracted us from our upcoming race, but our teachers reminded us that our warm-up in middle school is like the race we would face in high school. We began choosing a path and preparing mentally for the challenge ahead. Freshman year, Mr. Donney's starting gun scared us out of the blocks. We met those we would be running the race with and looked up to those who began the race before us. And for those of us who are in the vertically-challenged front row, including myself, (Sarah, Deja) we literally looked up to them. Some of the challenges we faced as freshman were which lunch line to stand in and deciding which one of the Fleming twins was cuter. To this day that's still a dilemma. Throughout the year, we were forced to pick up speed in order to avoid the traditional freshmen trash can and locker stuffings. Sophomore year, we were finally ahead of others and gaining respect. Having moved up in the race, our timidity vanished, and allowed us to participate in assemblies and other school events. And of course Mr. Dononey scared us again, this time using his biology experiments. Junior year, we were finally upperclassmen. Our race began to fall victim to senioritis a year early. But Mr. Burt's chemistry experiments really lit a fire under us. To this day, I am still not sure if Mr. Burt's eyebrows grew back. And of course, the baseball team drove us to be better. I think they used a Chrysler Minivan, but you'd have to ask Andy, Hal or Beau about that.
Ever since sixth grade I’ve been running long distance races but not until my freshman year did I learn about the legend of Pre. He has inspired my teammates and myself to give it all we have and to run a race not to see who’s the fastest but to see who’s got the most guts. Steve said a version of that in one of his great speeches. Any race he ran was better than I have ever done and better than I will ever do but I still strive toward his accomplishments and give everything I have.
Making the transition from middle school to high school is a huge stepping stone in a teenager’s life. High school represents both the ending of a childhood and the beginning of adulthood. It’s a rite of passage and often many teens have the wrong impression when beginning this passage. Most began high school with learning the last thing on their mind. They come in looking for a story like adventure and have a false sense of reality created through fabricated movie plots acted out by fictional characters. In all actuality high school is nothing like you see in movies, television shows, or what you read about in magazines.
It was the first day of school for many in Maycomb, including myself. I had just moved from a college in Winston Country. Almost 30 years have past since that day in Maycomb when I first saw the school I was to be teaching at. The classroom smelt stale after being closed up for the whole summer, as I met my students who I would teach for the next year. The one child I remember most had a trail of dirty footprints leading to his desk. The little horror looked like he was straight from the pig pen.
I had a good year in first grade. I became the best artist in the class. I started getting better at English. My first word was “bathroom.” I made two friends Michelle Sherman and Karen Calle. After that I started feeling better and actually liking this school. Everything felt better and worked out great!
After a while I was now beginning to understand the things that my teacher was teaching and understanding the language that the children in the classroom were speaking. It didn't sound like a whole bunch of "blah blah" anymore. I remember the first story that I wrote in my second grade class. It was about a family of baby cats and it wasn't even that long but to me it took forever to write. I was very...
When I was in elementary school, I loved to read. I was a total nerd back then ... okay maybe I still am, but one thing has changed. Now I don't so much like reading. My favorite poet was Shel Silverstein, who wrote "Where the Sidewalk Ends." He seemed like he was a total hippie, but that's cool because I like hippies. My grandma is a recovering hippie. I like her too. Anyway, Shel Silverstein wrote about the coolest things. He wrote about magical erasers, eating whales and a boy with long hair flying away from people who were taunting him. He captured all of the things that I loved without knowing that I actually loved them. Now you may ask, how does this hippie relate to our graduation? Well, he wrote a poem entitled "Traffic Light" and this is how it goes:
Paradis finished calling the names and I was ushered off stage by Mrs. Nagri, the very math teacher with whom I had been working with for months. I was no longer recognized as a smart child who had participated in a demanding contest, rather, I was regarded as a child who did not have the mathematical capability that our school looked for in its children. As I watched from the side, the other students received awards, the best of which was a gold medal and trophy for my neighbor Shrey Patel, who had placed first in the competition within our school. All the kids remaining on stage had also qualified for the national event - an achievement which no one was going to forget for a long time. I watched my parents silently walk out of the gym, heads hung down, and I knew that they had higher hopes for me walking into the
The start of the 2002 track season found me concerned with how I would perform. After a disastrous bout with mononucleosis ended my freshmen track season, the fear of failure weighed heavily on my mind. I set a goal for myself in order to maintain focus and to push myself like nothing else would. My goal for my sophomore track season was to become a state champion in the 100 meter hurdles. I worked hard everyday at practice and went the extra mile, like running every Sunday, to be just that much closer to reaching my goal. The thought of standing highest on the podium in the center of the field, surrounded by hundreds of spectators, overcame my thoughts of complaining every time we had a hard workout. When I closed my eyes, I pictured myself waiting in anticipation as other competitors names were called out, one by one, until finally, the booming voice announced over the loudspeaker, "...and in first place, your 2002 100 meter hurdle champion, from Hotchkiss, Connie Dawson." It was visions like these that drove me to work harder everyday.
It was the beginning of third grade but over the summer I had been reading so much I did the reading program at the Anderson township library. So when I went to school that year I was reading more often and when we had reading and writing assignment I would put so much effort in to what I was doing; unlike some people in the IEP class as me. I begin to excel at reading and
It was my first at Cherokee Middle School. I pulled up to the front of the school. Reluctantly, I pulled my legs to the right side of the seat and slide out of the passenger seat. My lungs automatically lifted and I took a deep breath. Sighing, I pulled out my eighth grade schedule. I glided through the doors of the building in a sea of sweaty middle schoolers. The cafeteria unfolded to my right and the main office to my left. The cafeteria
I still remember sitting in the library at 8:30 at night in the individual study room trying to differentiate between “there” and “their”. I would come from school and television wasn’t an option, I would have flashcards and books to read. I would love when my mother would come home late from work because it gave me extra time to hide my video game console in the spot she usually hides it in. I believe that’s where my stubbornness with education came to fruition. I stopped taking school seriously just like how Waverly stubbornly gave up on chess.
We stood all grouped up until the Coaches showed up. They told us what we were going to be doing. We started with a couple rounds of straight sprints, then we moved on to the kind of thing that made me rethink the insinuation
Education teaches us about a great many things. In kindergarten, you learn the alphabet and counting. ten, in elementary school, you learn penmanship, and the four basic. ways to get seventy through a chain of addition, grammar, and we start. to want to do our own thing instead of everything that our parents wants us to do.
There have been many things that I have learned from running track. In the spring of 2015, while I ran track, I encountered many obstacles that transformed me. Each of these experiences trained me into becoming an improved athlete. One of the most difficult trials I faced put me to the test in many ways. Even though I was unsuccessful, I was able to learn from this experience.
My education began in fifth grade, my parents moved from one location to another. It wasn’t easy for me, because school was the first place I ever got to interact with other kids. Before school started, I was pretty much kept indoors and not allowed to have contact with other people, except for my family members.