Narrative Essay On Emergency School

658 Words2 Pages

It was scorching. I could feel the sweat dripping off my face as I tried to take notes. The graffitied walls, the roof, the door… Everything was made of metal, and I felt like a bird trapped in a cage. The teacher called out forty names, but only fifteen answered. The noise from other classrooms passed easily through the thin walls, disrupting my attention. During the summer, it was too hot; during the winter, too cold. For thirteen years, Anibal, an emergency school made purely out of metal, was the only notion of education I had.
Despite the discouraging learning environment, my mother, who had dropped out of school to help my family make ends meet, attended every parent-teacher conference, happy to have her children in school. She would …show more content…

She was representing ISMART, a non-profit organization that offers scholarships to outstanding low-income students. Her words were surreal to me. I could not believe that an institution would cover tuition, books, meals and transportation for students like me to attend a first-tier private school. I was filled with uncertainty, but knew I could not let this unique opportunity slip away.
After a long process, I was one of the 190 accepted students from a pool of over 12,000 applicants; ISMART was my key to escape from the metal cage and study at Arquidiocesano, a centenary French school that educated three Brazilian presidents. In spite of all the challenges I knew lied ahead, I was ready to embrace them and make my mother and I even prouder of my accomplishments.
Every day, I left the city of Osasco, in the outskirts of São Paulo, and commuted four hours to Arquidiocesano. I had twice the amount of courses I previously had, frequent testing, and extra classes in order to catch up. My friends said I was crazy for having such a harsh routine at the young age of 14, but I was happy; I felt that I was in full control of my future, and that feeling was worth the effort. I started to see new doors opening up to me, from Model U.N. to national scientific olympiads; every experience made me more excited and immersed in this engaging new world I was

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