Worth I awoke this particular morning to a sky, heavy with gray clouds, choking the welcoming warmth and light of the morning sun. The humidity was so palpable, it felt as though it reached into my naturally curly hair and twisted it into one impossible tangle with its own, moist fingers. Knowing I had to gain an education, I got dressed. I threw on my companionable sweater, hopped into my car, and drove, reluctantly, to the school. After heaving my backpack onto my shoulder, I slugged across the school yard toward the ominous, glass double-doors. The doors that perplexed my racing mind on a normal day with its unforgiving reflection seemed especially stern today, and my anxiousness and dread seemed to grow as the reflection grew with each …show more content…
step closer. I began to wonder if everyone looked at me the same way I did. This was not a day I was anticipating. Coming to the end of the school year, all of us sophomores were preparing for our English state test.
We shuffled into Mrs. Hynum’s class for English II and sat in our desks. The desks were separated into groups of three. Our class was constantly competing to see which group could out-smart the others. We were working diligently on the practice state test booklets in our prospective groups. After we completed the practice booklets, the real competition began. Students drug their desks to form a crescent around the Promethean Board. Each group was huddled around with answer sheets and Active Votes in hand. Mrs. Hynum walked up to the Promethean Board in front of the class. Everyone was slightly nervous and a little excited. Meanwhile, I was ready to get it over with. No one seemed to understand the daily battle that took place in my mind. I was constantly arguing with myself over whether the statement I had just made was too weird or made me seem out of place. I never seemed to “fit …show more content…
in.” Mrs. Hynum started reviewing the state practice test questions on the board. With our Active Voters, we punched in the correct answer, pressed “send,” and our answers were there on the board for everyone to see. If a group got a question wrong, they would explain how they got their answer and the other groups would help them come up with the reason for the correct answer. We kept answering and around question thirty whenever we sent in our answers only one group had the answer wrong. It was Kate’s group. She was supposed to be the “over achiever in all things” smart girl. Mrs. Hynum asked, “Kate, why did your group get that answer?” Kate replied “Umm... Well, I guess because—’’ and she finished her explanation. Mrs. Hynum asked, “Well, why do you think the other answer is correct?” Kate said, “Because everyone else says it’s right so we’ll just go with it.” Mrs.
Hynum had “the look” cross over her face. Her facial expression said precisely what she was thinking. Later on, fifteen questions further into the review, I looked up at the board to see that my group was the only group to get another answer from every one else. On the inside, I panicked. I thought to myself “Oh, great.” because I was the one in Morgan, Marly, and my group to insist this was the correct answer. They looked at me with betrayed faces. Then, something rose up inside of me. I quickly read back over the question and answers. Yes, I was confident. Everyone else in the class had began chattering and Mrs. Hynum shushed them. I knew she was feeling sorry for my group, but I was ready to make my
proclamation. “Mrs. Hynum,” I said, “I would like to present why our groups answer is the correct answer.” I gave my explanation, and a look of pride swept across her countenance. “Yes, Ashlyn, that is the correct answer.” My cheeks flushing, I felt somewhat proud myself. Then, she continued. “And that, class, is why you don’t always go with the crowd.” From that day forth, I’ve had a profound sense of self worth and clarity of my reason of being. I’m not here to please everyone. I’m not here to fit in. I’m not here to follow behind everyone else. I’m here to stand out and make the world a place of more rightness with my own peculiarity.
As I walk to the front of the classroom, time seems to slow to a crawl. I take a glance at a sea of blank faces staring back at me. You would have thought I would be use to this sensation by now. I know what to expect and have been through these motions a hundred times, but as I walk up to the stage, determined not to cower in defeat, the notecards I grasp firmly in defiance quiver slightly exposing my sense of dread. So while I often triumph over this battle, I now stood atop that classroom stage preparing to recite the merits of James Madison that I had poured myself over the past few weeks. I had the lingering thought that throughout the sea of faces there were those who were paying less attention to what I was saying and more attention to how I was saying it.
The students could hardly sit still during penultimate period the day before the long Columbus Day Weekend. The school was gearing up for the annual pep rally held during the last period of the school day before the Columbus Day Weekend. Lots of Calvary Hill teachers would stick it to the students before long weekends and vacations by giving tests and quizzes, others would give up the instructional time and let the kids watch a movie. Peter didn’t test or let the kids waste time with movies, he structured the time with games of Jeopardy and other fun activities that kept the kids engaged and thinking about the content material, while still having fun. When the final bell rang, the students could hardly believe that the period had flown by. They gathered up their materials and headed for the door.
I walked in and my stomach made a flip-flop like riding “The Scream” at Six Flags. Everyone was staring at me! With their curios eyes and anxious to know who I was. I froze like ice and felt the heat rise through my face. My parents talked to my teacher, Ms.Piansky. Then my mom whispered “It’s ti...
“I see you Mr. Adza, I see right through you. You think you can charm your way out of any situation with your big smile and smooth way with words, but you can’t just coast through life with this sort of arrogant, nonchalant attitude. One day its really gonna bite you in the ass,” said Mr. Jansen, as he towered over my desk. Most of the class had scurried out at the sound of the school bell. I was simply trying to explain to the man that my random outbursts in class actually did him a favor because it loosened my classmates up, freeing their mind for the learning process. In fact, Mr. Jansen and I were actually a team. We were the dream team! I was the comic relief and he was the scholar. We went hand in hand.
When the time was up to stop writing, I looked around the classroom and noticed some of the students appeared a bit confused. The assignment was not a difficult one, not for me anyway. When the teacher began asking students to share what they had written with the class, it was interesting to find that only a...
How many of you argue or debate with a particular person? (pause) My top offender is my brother John. In an argument awhile ago, I was intrigued at our unique responses to an unexpected event. Our youngest sister Anna spilled paint in various places around our dining room and kitchen. We both agreed she needed to clean it up. John bluntly told Anna she shouldn’t have made the mess. I told Anna it was no big deal. Then we both gave her instructions on how to clean it up. After this episode, I wondered why John and I say basically the same thing so differently.
11:14 p.m.-I slowly ascend from my small wooden chair, and throw another blank sheet of paper on the already covered desk as I make my way to the door. Almost instantaneously I feel wiped of all energy and for a brief second that small bed, which I often complain of, looks homey and very welcoming. I shrug off the tiredness and sluggishly drag my feet behind me those few brief steps. Eyes blurry from weariness, I focus on a now bare area of my door which had previously been covered by a picture of something that was once funny or memorable, but now I can't seem to remember what it was. Either way, it's gone now and with pathetic intentions of finishing my homework I go to close the door. I take a peek down the hall just to assure myself one final time that there is nothing I would rather be doing and when there is nothing worth investigating, aside from a few laughs a couple rooms down, I continue to shut the door.
Mr. Zibanejad slowly handed back the English test to his grade 10 students. He was an experienced teacher, so making the students wait in dread for their most important test results of the year amused him. Scott Zibanejad chuckled to himself- he had been teaching for close to twenty years, yet he still didn’t realize why the kids fussed so much about exams. One student, in particular, felt very nervous. His name was Steven Steele. Steven was a bright student and did exceptionally well on his homework. Despite this, he struggled on tests and had a C average. He didn’t like the atmosphere of the classroom. Steven believed that classrooms were hot, claustrophobic, and loud, which in turn, made concentrating difficult. As Mr. Zibanejad handed back
Seven thirty in the morning, confused, and gazing at my first experience of college I had no idea what this semester would have in store for me. Within the second story of Vawter Hall about fifty to a hundred students are crowding the hall awaiting the arrival of their professors. I was no different; unlike these other chatty energetic individuals I was alone, and desperate to get this first day over with. At eight o’clock bells chime through the building and the students have now dwindled down to those who I will later come to know as classmates and those few who had overslept on the first day. Eight fifteen, the little crowd starts to stir; the professor has still yet to arrive. Around eight twenty a woman with short cut hair arrives in a hurried manner, clearly upset to have arrived after her students. However, to her surprise, and those of her students, the door was
Growing up, I always felt out of place. When everyone else was running around in the hot, sun, thinking of nothing, but the logistics of the game they were playing. I would be sat on the curb, wondering what it was that made them so much different from me. To me, it was if they all knew something that I didn’t know, like they were all apart of some inside joke that I just didn’t get. I would sit, each day when my mind wasn’t being filled with the incessant chatter of my teachers mindlessly sharing what they were told to, in the hot, humid air of the late spring and wonder what I was doing wrong. See, my discontent
After completing the assessment exercise I have been able to carefully my personality. The exercise consisted of an evaluation of four areas: Locus of Control, Personality Type, Stress Reactions, and Learning Styles.
It was finally the first day of school; I was excited yet nervous. I hoped I would be able to make new friends. The first time I saw the schools name I thought it was the strangest name I’ve ever heard or read, therefore I found it hard to pronounce it in the beginning. The schools’ floors had painted black paw prints, which stood out on the white tiled floor. Once you walk through the doors the office is to the right. The office seemed a bit cramped, since it had so many rooms in such a small area. In the office I meet with a really nice, sweet secretary who helped me register into the school, giving me a small tour of the school, also helping me find
I was born on February 13th 2000 in Logan Utah. At a very young age my family moved to the island of Saipan, one of the Micronesian Islands, in the pacific ocean. My family did this due to the fact that my dad had found a job there as a doctor that he liked and my mother had served her mission on multiple Micronesian islands as well as Saipan. Sadly after a year my mom brought me back to Utah. This was the beginning of my parents divorce. The divorce was not official till I was four but they were separated by the time I was one. I was the youngest of four children. I grew and developed with the church in a split family. All I have ever known is separation. At the age of five I was introduced to two new parents. My father remarried as well as
The summer between high school and college was a time of change for me. I had to adjust to new activities and priorities. In the April of my senior year I retired from the Springfield Ballet Company. Dancing had taken up almost all of my time and effort. When I retired I felt like I did not know who I was, and what I needed to spend my time and energy doing.
Brringg! The bell signals the end of class and I anxiously wait for my mother to arrive. I find myself impatiently glancing at the clock every two minutes; finally the car pulls up. I jump into the back seat and throw off my heavy backpack. As my mom pulls away, the same old raspy voice can be heard over the radio. I try to block out the blaring AM station, but the word “opening day” grabs my attention. The weatherman forecasts a sunny day with a cool breeze. A smile erupts on my face, which my mom can’t help but notice through the reflection of the rearview mirror.