Maddie Boone Student ID #22142380 Exam
I never imagined myself finishing high school through an online course. I always imagined walking across the stage of the school auditorium. Daydreams of wearing the traditional cap, gown, and tassel, and being handed my diploma by my high school supervising principal, Mr. Bryant, was how I had planned to say "goodbye" to South Jones High School. Yet, the harder I clung to those visions and hopes, the more impossible they became. The name calling, glares, whispers, and rumors were more than I could bear. Just when I was about to give up on graduating, my mother had a wonderful idea- homeschool.
As far back as elementary school I had heard about the mean girls. I'd seen plenty of movies in which the clique of perfect, beautiful girls ruled the halls of high school year after year. I am sad to say that even in my small, country town, mean girls ruled South Jones High too. From here on, I will refer to them individually as "THE Queen B", "Wannabe Queen B", "Honey B", "and "How-Could-You B". Collectively, I will call them "The B's". These horribly conceited beasts arrived at school every morning looking flawless, smelling delicious, and commanding the
…show more content…
attention of everyone they passed as they flaunted, arm in arm, to homeroom. I tried to make myself invisible when I heard the sound of their artificially sweetened chatter coming down the hall. The hardest part about being targeted by the mean girls was that nobody dared to go against them, so their cruel taunts and insults were usually echoed by every brown-nosing student in the hall within hearing distance. It wasn't always so dreadful. Actually, I nearly got sucked into their world. When I was in the eighth grade I auditioned for New Edition, the school's female show choir group. I was so excited when my mom said that I could try out for a position in the 'sing and dance' performance group. My mom was so pleased that I was accepted to join! I think she was as overjoyed as I was even though the $1600.00 per year per student membership fee to participate was more than she could dream of affording. My mom dedicated herself to the odds and ends fundraisers held by the committee and when my sister joined the next year and the membership dues doubled to $3200.00, mom was double delighted. She sold more knife sets, random knick-knacs, and bulk frozen vegetables during fundraiser time than our local Wal-Mart did! I began my first year of high school with all the nerves and jitters expected of girls like myself. I felt like a minnow swimming with the sharks. It was like kindergarten all over again and i was the youngest grade at the bottom of the high school food chain. When show choir practice began on the afternoon of the first day of school, The B's asked me to practice with them. At first i was speechless. How could I, plain old Maddie, be interesting to them? I couldn't even believe they knew my name! I accepted their invitation and for the next two years I was part of the "in" crowd. It was wonderful to be so popular, but it came with a price. As my sophomore year came to an end i got a chance to audition for the main show choir group called "Company". This group was the limelight of our school's extracurricular activities. I was beyond nervous during my audition and my stomach had been hurting for several days so that definitely didn't help my nerves. But, to my shock and amazement, I passed the audition and was officially a member of Company! When I met up with the four girls who, for the last two years i had considered my friends, they announced that they all had passed their auditions as well. This called for a celebration! The party of all parties. It was the only topic of discussion for the next month. Officially set for mid July, this was to be an epic event that was sure to be talked about well into the next school year. The first month of summer flew by and it had not been a great one for me. The pain in my stomach had gone from a dull ache to some pretty intense moments and i was so nauseated most of the time that i had to force myself to eat. But I couln't think about that. The only guy I had ever had a crush on (and a long long crush at that) had text me that morning and asked if I would be at the party. I didn't even ask how he got my number. I didn't care! He had it and that was all that mattered. The party was a week away and I had to be feeling better by then. I just had to. I spent days putting together the perfect outfit and styling my hair a thousand different ways to make sure that I didn't have anything to be nervous about except being in the company of the only guy who ever turned my head. The big night finally arrived and my mom drove me to the house where the most important party of my existance was located. She said she would be back to pick me up at midnight. I begged her to let me have a later curfew, but she said no. I knew my mom well enough not to push my luck, so I grudgingly kissed her cheek and started up the steps. I felt like Cindrella at the ball. However, my midnight came a bit earlier than Cinderella's did. As soon as I walked in the door I realized that this party was not supervised by adults like I had promised my mom that it would be. The smell of marijuana smoke drifted through my nostrils and made me nauseous. There were empty containers of beer and liquor covering every surface throughout the living room and kitchen. As I looked around for the four girls I'd spent all my free time with, I locked eyes with him instead. Mr. Amazing, my crush, was a mere fifteen to twenty steps away from me. My palms felt wetter than if i had just dipped them into a sink of hot dishwater. I felt my knees threatening to abandon my composure. He walked toward me, grabbed my hand, and led me up the stairs to one of the vacant guest rooms. I was sure I was dreaming, but the delicious scent drifting off his body and into my nostrils assured me that I was awake. I immediately forgot finding my friends and all the reasons why I should be walking out of the party. I begged the pain in my stomach to take a hike. I tried to ignore it. He led me to the bed, and though we hadn't even spoken a word to one another ever, he began to explore my body like we had been married for years. I didn't resist at first. I was sixteen years old and I had never even kissed a boy yet. The B's always made fun of me for being a "prude" and at times their words made me wonder why I considered them my friends at all. I thought, "We're just making out. It's time for that stuff. I'm a big girl now." But when his hand slipped inside my skirt, I knew I wasn't ready for that. I pushed his hand away. He attempted again and I slapped his cheek. I was so shocked at what I had done that I bolted from the darkened room and down the stairs. I could barely see through the welled up tears. I was completely heartbroken. I couldn't believe I had thought so highly of him. My grandmother's words rang out in my head so loudly, "Be careful how much credit you freely give those around you. When they come crashing off that pedestal you have them on, it'll be you that gets crushed, not them, dear. Make them earn it." I saw The Queen B and How-Could-You B standing in the kitchen.
Then I saw a girl vomiting in the kitcen sink. I knew that girl! Her name is Kaylee. She tutored me in math freshman year when I was in danger of failing, She didn't fit in with the girls I spent my free time with so I never spoke to her outside of school. Soon after we finished our tutoring, she transferred or dropped out- I didn't know which- and I never gave another thought to her whereabouts. What was she doing here? She must be so humiliated! I ran over to hold her hair back. I grabbed a clean washcloth from the kitchen drawer and tried to help her clean her face. She didn't want my help at first, but as a new wave of nausea literally turned her face green, she accepted my
help. I had all but forgotten about my own recent humiliation in the commotion I heard Wannabe Queen B telling the other two B's what sounded like exactly the opposite of what happened upstairs between me and Mr. Amazing. She was saying that I threw myself on him and he turned me down; the reasons why he couldn't go through with it are to disgusting to repeat. I turned around and saw them glaring at me in a way that said, "You have just committed social suicide". The pain in my stomach seared through me so sharply that at that moment, I fainted. I woke up in the hospital with my mom standing near my bed. There were two blurry shapes behind her but I couldn't make out what or who they were. I didn't even try to focus on who they were because the look on my mom's face was really freaking me out! I heard my voice croak, "Mom, what's going on?" I felt a cold hand on mine and when I turned to see who it was, I was shocked to see that it was Kaylee. The two blurry shapes came into focus as my sister, Emma, and my mom's best friend of 25 years, Beverly. They were both crying and holding one another. "Thank goodness Kaylee rode in the ambulance with you to the ER! She still had my phone number from the times I arranged for your tutoring. She called me as soon as you were in route. The doctors say everything will be fine but you will have to have an emergency gall bladder removal," my mom began. "And...." she couldn't continue. Beverly walked up and my mom turned and buried her face in Beverly's shoulder. "That isn't major is it? Why all the tears?" I was confused. Why had it been Kaylee who rode with me to the hospital and not one of my friends? "Is dad here?" My mom never lost her composure like this, but now she was full-on hysterical. The only times I remember seeing her this upset were when she and my dad were going through their divorce and.... "Just tell her, mama, please," said my sister. Her voice was full of anguish. "Tell me what?" It was me who was becoming hysterical now. When she couldn't even form her mouth to make the words come out, Beverly said to me "Maddie, honey, there has been an accident". I felt Kaylee's hand tighten around mine. I squeezed back. She had a comforting presence about her. "Sweetie," Beverly took a deep breath and began again, "
The stereotypical girls in highschool can either be very negative or positive when it comes to engaging with interpersonal communications. To display various examples of interpersonal relationships, there is a movie called Mean Girls. The movie demonstrates how a group of girls in a public high school survive their way through life with gossip as one of their sources of communication. The main characters involved in this movie are Cady Heron, Regina George, Gretchen Wieners, and Karen Smith. These girls are known as, “The Plastics,” the most popular girls in the school. However, Cady was not one of them, she only hung out with them to sabotage them because they would bully Janis Ian, the first friend Cady made since she moved to that school.
Not until I started attending Seattle Central Community College (SCCC) as a Running Start student did I appreciate the sacrifices my parents had made. By meeting people from diverse backgrounds at SCCC and spending more time apart from my family, I finally understood what my parents had been trying to teach me through homeschooling. They wanted to nurture my spiritual needs and didn’t want me to forget our cultural background and values, especially...
The screeching decibels of my alarm clock woke me at five-thirty that morning. Football practice the day before completely destroyed my body leaving my arms and legs almost unmovable. All my strength was used to stand that morning. My brother told me to stop complaining and get ready for school. He was older and always bossed me around. “I don’t want to go to school” I exclaimed! “What are you going to do, sit at home and stay dumb?” He said. That is not a bad idea I thought. I can teach myself. I imagined the possibility of being homeschooled. I knew homeschooling was not an option for me. My mother worked two jobs and was hardly home to check my homework. If it was an option, homeschooling would be my choice. Homeschooling is a better choice than a Public School education. Homeschooling offers
Growing up I never gave a thought as to why I was homeschooled. Having never experienced a single day of public school, I wasn’t familiar with the morning routine of catching the school bus. The familiar scene for me was waking up much later than my peers and going to my “school” where every day was pajama day. While my friends would often let me know how
Throughout my four years in high school I have been fortunate enough to fulfill many of my aspirations and my thirst for knowledge. One goal that I would like to achieve is to become an international attorney. I have aligned my involvement in specific academic and extra-curricular activities to aid me preparing for the long road between my present situation and the day I pass the bar exam. Through my high school activities I have learned three virtues that I have deemed necessary to achieve my goal, passion, self-discipline, and perseverance.
Imagine lacking the educational foundations to keep up with the standard schooling program of public schools in today’s society. According to Education by the Numbers, 1.6% of 8th graders are held back every year due to not having the ability to reach the performance level expected for moving to the next grade. A student who was one of the few to experience this unfortunate situation is named Steven Gene Senatro. Steven wasn’t prepared to become a freshman in high school. He was young and not prepared for the next level of education, so his parents made the executive decision to not let him proceed to high school, and put him in homeschooling to fill in the educational gaps. This decision seemed tragic and unfortunate at first but later became
Graduating high school was really exciting for me, but at the same time I was apprehensive because I knew it was a significant milestone in my life and I didn't know what to expect with college. However, the freedoms provided by college ending up being wonderful. I love being able to completely manage my time on my own and make my own decisions. I graduate college next May. If I were not going to grad school I would probably be dreading it because I don't think I'm ready for the "real world" and having a 9-5 job yet. So, since I am continuing my education it's going to be exciting since I will be moving to a new state and meeting new people.
Before I enrolled into SAC, I was a non-fan of sports, nervous, young man, who heard about SAC from a friend in Upper School and has tons of hopes for Grade 9. Something was hold me back to go to SAC. , although that "something” terminated after I knew that everyone were Andrean Brothers and that's why I'm currently aiming to perfect the role of a well-rounded citizen. As they say, “Friends are the most ingredient in the recipe of life”. Friends, like Daniel Zhao, who told me about this school changed my whole life. Once I stepped on Andrean soil, I knew that I was part of something special. In addition, I never had "fun" in sports events because I thought I might get hurt. Yet when I joined SAC sports teams, I was afraid
High school is meant to be the time of your life, but for most seniors just like me it can be some of the most emotional and crazy time. The things in my past make me who I am today, and the things I do now are the first footsteps into the future. I’ve learned a lot about myself in these past four years, and I still have so much learning to do. This is my high school story; the good, bad, and the ugly.
Let’s flash back in time to before our college days. Back to then we had lunch trays filled with rubbery chicken nuggets, stale pizza, and bags of chocolate milk. A backpack stacked with Lisa Frank note books, flexi rulers, and color changing pencils. The times where we thought we wouldn’t make it out alive, but we did. Through all the trials and tribulations school helped build who I am today and shaped my future. From basic functions all the way to life-long lessons that helped shape my character.
In today’s American society, quality education is important for one to succeed. Without proper education, a person will find it extremely difficult to apply for college, a job, or to pursue his or her dream. Typically when Americans think of education, public education is the first to come to mind. Public education has been around for centuries and is provided to most children throughout the United States. Due to this fact, public education has been the go to education source for years. Though, this trend is slowly changing with many parents deciding to home school their children instead. Many factors are the cause for this issue, but the common arguments arise from a certain few. For students, public school provides many opportunities ranging from social connections, school sports, and the exposure to teachers who are experts in their fields. But homeschooling is often superior because it offers additional time for students to participate in various extracurricular activities and community service, allows for more individual attention, personal character development, and it offers less exposure to discrimination that is received in the public school environment.
As the population in public schools increase, the problems in these schools are also on the rise. These changes are leasing to the way parents are schooling their children. Many parents are leaning towards homeschooling as a solution to this problem. This increase in homeschooling can be directly related to an increase in school violence, the offering of a lack luster curriculum, and lack of student teacher interaction.
Romanowski, M. H. a. The adage of the adage of the adage Homeschool and the public school: Rethinking the relationship. Streamlined Seminar, 19(3), Spring 2001. Retrieved December 7, 2004 from the EBSCO database. Sikkink, D. (1999).
Studies have shown year after year that homeschooled students consistently perform just as well as (or in many cases better than) traditionally schooled students on standardized academic exams. But very rarely does anyone ask why this is, or what caused the student to do so well, because they are usually too concerned with questions about the student’s social life or if they would be able to handle the transition into college. Therefore, my thesis statement is: Homeschooled students often achieve higher academic success and are more active in their communities than traditionally schooled students, due to a personalized approach to learning that emphasizes individuality. My research paper will debunk some popular myths about homeschooling, and give the real reasons why homeschoolers are so successful.
Today, many parents are homeschooling their children. A U.S. Department of Education’s report shows that approximately 1.5 million children were being homeschooled in 2007 (Lips & Feinberg, 2008). This is almost 3 percent of all school age children (Lips & Feinberg, 2008). A private researcher, the National Home Education Research Institute, estimates 2.5 million children were being homeschooled in the 2007 – 2008 academic years (Lips & Feinberg, 2008). By either count, homeschooling is growing exponentially.