Personal Narrative: The Dumb Kid

I never thought of myself as the dumb kid in class until that moment, but when it happened I still didn't think I was any less smart than I am until years later and a similar situation happened to me. The first event was in second grade. I thought I was the best student out of the whole grade, well at least my class. I had recently came to America from Jamaica so I still had a strong accent. I remember we had just had our first parent teacher conference since spring break and I went with my mom just for the fun and to hear what teachers would say about me. Everything was going well until I heard my mom ask about my classwork and the teacher took a while to answer. I was expecting to heard nothing but good things until I heard the teacher say “but as a parent myself I think

Tavaree is a bit behind the standards and is not showing me her full potential”. I stared at the teacher with so much confusion and anger and sadness, so many emotions running through me in that moment. After that I remember my mom telling me I have till the next conference in about a month to fix my grades and show the teacher that I can do better. From then till the next conference I did everything I could to show my teacher my best. The next conference came and I was ready to hear nothing but good things from my teacher but instead just like the last time I hear the opposite. This time the teacher recommended my mom to go to the principal and have me put back in second grade again.

What really shocked me was that my mom agreed with my teacher and did what she said. The next year I was stuck in the same grade and the same class with the same teacher, learning the same work again. But even then that still didn't make me feel or think less of myself until a few years later as I was getting ready to leave middle school. All school year old I was one of the top 5 smartest kids in the whole grade. It got closer and closer to the end of the year and time for gradation, all of my teachers told me I would be validation of the year. I ended up believing them and worked hard to keep my spot as validation. It was a few weeks before gradation and we were given report cards early and my English teacher announced who would be validation and salutatorian. Two of my classmates got both positions and at first I was confused, upset, and most certainly pissed off. I went to everybody I could trying to figure out what happened. We looked at the grades and averages and come to find out my English teacher gave both girls 105 in her class making their averages higher than mines by 3

points. Both events taught me the 2 lesson I still live by today, “you have to work hard until you can't work no more for what you want. Never get too comfortable because when you get too comfortable you get blind sided. And always expect the unexpected more than you expect the expected”. Those events show me that people can smile in your face, hug you like they're your best friend and still turn around and hurt you where you least expect it. From those moment I learn to not believe everything people say and not to trust every smiling face.