Personal Narrative: Sarah Porter's Schoolhouse

Above are pictures of Mrs. Pollard’s classroom at Hartwood Elementary School. The atmosphere of the room is extremely bright and learning-oriented. The lighting is bright and there are posters around the room that are colorful. The picture on the left shows the set-up of the entire room and the picture on the right shows the front of the room from the perspective of the students. If anything is difficult to see in the pictures, Mrs. Pollard has Orff instruments set up on the side, a piano in the front, and two desks in the back; which leaves a space in the middle of the room for students. She also has posters of instruments, recorder fingerings, and solfège around the room.

One’s environment plays a positive or negative role in shaping a person’s identity depending on where they live. Growing up in a bad neighborhood, one might be surrounded by gangsters, dangerous streets, and have a higher chance of becoming a burden on society. Growing up in a rich neighborhood, one might worry less and get whatever they want; so life is not a burden. But being exposed in a poor environment shapes one’s identity positively by motivating a person to grow and evolve for the better.

In The First Day by Edward P.Jones and Harper Collins story, the first day the authors are going into detail about little life change. Jones describes the lifestyle of how it is growing up and not being able to interact or get out much to see other people then when one gets the chance to come out of their box, it is somewhat of a cultural shock. The life of growing up that Jones presents somewhat makes it feel like growing up with an uneducated mother could make things somewhat complicated. Jones also mentions one school more than the other. This makes it seem as though one school is better than the other one, possibly because of the location or because of the race at the school. Although the author mentions the less diverse school, the author

A dystopia is defined as a society in which the conditions of life include misery, oppression, poverty, etc. In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag lives in a dystopia, where books are banned. Written in 1953, it is set in the future. We may not consider our world to be a dystopia, but the society envisioned by Bradbury strongly resembles our own. It is a world with violence among young adults, dwindling emphasis placed on education, and increasing threats of nuclear war.

When I was attending Kaneland John Shields Elementary School in Sugar Grove, everday was just the same. First we started out with Silent reading our books, and then moved onto reading with our guided reading books. Next, we would move onto writing, where some days we free wrote and others we had an assignment. After Writing we had specials, which consisted of, art, P.E, computer,and music. Then we had lunch, math,and lastly social studies and science.

In her narrative essay “The Sanctuary of School,” Lynda Barry recounts a story from her childhood that illustrates her relationships at school vs her relationships at home. She tells us how public school was her sanctuary from her unstable home life. It was a stable environment that she depended on. She tells us this when she says ,"[F]or the next six hours I was going to enjoy a thoroughly secure, warm and stable world." Unlike at home, her school was a place she was noticed and cared about.

In “The Sanctuary of School” Lynda applies her personal life to the fact that some people think cutting down budgets for public schools will benefit when times get tough. Also that art, music and the creative ideas will be the first to go when budgets are cut. Lynda had a rough childhood where her parents had money issues and family members that needed temporarily to stay at her home (Barry, 721). The lack of attention from her parents made her look for attention elsewhere in this case the school. Lynda saw her teacher Mrs. LeSane as a mother figure. Mrs. LeSane instead of questioning troubled children got the children to release their troubled selves through creativity. Lynda states that when she decided to sneak out of her home she went to

In Lynda Barry’s essay “The Sanctuary of School” the author gives her personal feelings about the education system and when times get hard the first thing to go from the schools are the art programs and the after school care. She than talks about how her home was not a safe and stable place to live with her brother and she found her school to be a safe haven. I also have a sanctuary and peaceful place I run to when I needs to get peace and it’s my grandmother house.

During the past two years, I was given the opportunity to spend some time observing in the classrooms at the First Presbyterian Church of Bakerstown Preschool, a Christian-based school, in the Gibsonia, PA area, the Westminster College Preschool Lab, and the Head Start program at New Castle, PA. Observing in the different classrooms displayed different ways to setup and design one classroom from another. The church preschool was different from the Head Start program, mostly due by the budget and location of each facility. Many of the church preschool classroom materials were provided by donations to the preschool. The classrooms at all three locations, had some physical similarities with each other including: many windows, child-sized tables, chairs, cubbies, and play kitchens that were child friendly, with different areas for children to play in during free time. In my opinion, all the classrooms were brightly painted and cheery, providing a positive, happy feeling for

"In a sixth grade classroom, brownish clumps of plaster dot the ceiling where there once were sound-absorbing tiles" (p. 137). “We don’t have encyclopedias in classrooms. That is for the suburbs” (p. 85). These words are not my own - I am quoting from Jonathan Kozol, a Harvard-educated activist who observed several school districts spanning the range of the socioeconomic spectrum, from industrial Camden, New Jersey, to tony Great Neck, New York. In his time at each of these schools, he uncovers many truths that governments and the wealthy tend to glaze over in discussions of educational fund allocation. Through his vivid descriptions and carefully selected phrasing, he moves the reader to appreciate the significant chasm between public education for the rich and for the poor. Overall, the variety of examples demonstrate our society's inability to unite

Knoblauch, C.H. “Literacy and the Politics of Education.” The Right to Literacy. Ed. Andrea A. Lunsford, Helene Moglen, and James Slevin. New York: MLA, 1990. 74-80. Print.

On the corner of School Ave and 5th Street a small playground rests on a sandy pit dusted with footprints of different shapes and sizes. Each day a surfeit of students stomp over the play equipment during their fifteen minute recess. In an office close by this playground, Principal Harriet Taylor is hard at work as she reaches the final stride in her career as an administrator at Springfield Elementary School. In June when the kids abandon the playground for summer, Harriet will abandon the office, relinquishing her duties as principal for the lure of retirement. Before Harriet could even dream of the office she works in today, she was romping all over the same playground many Springfield students use today. Harriet Taylor’s family moved to Bay County when she was eight years old and Harriet began third grade at none other than Springfield Elementary School. “It’s kind of cool that I got to start here and now I’m ending here.” she says with a proud smile, a Springfield tiger through and through.

1226 Piedmont School Rd resided directly across the street from an enormous, private K-12 academia of the same name; the house serving as the poster child of the neighborhood’s median income to all who commuted to and from the institution. In front, the driveway curved in a half-circle, at just the perfect angle to make mom’s new E-class look pristine facing the road. Supplementing the view on either side, two Japanese Maples my father planted for my brother and I as a birthday present: one named after him, and the other after me. In the spring the leaves sprouted out from the branches with five tips, like hands reaching for the sun; in the fall they turned bright red, like a bouquet of roses before perishing. Against the backdrop of the brick

As soon as you exit the freeway, you begin to enter a scenic suburban neighborhood. Earle Brown is small school, located in the Brooklyn Center School District. Brooklyn Center Community Schools is a small residential suburban school district located on the northwest region of Minneapolis. Earle Brown Elementary School is an International Baccalaureate preschool through sixth grade school, filled with hallways of students and teachers from diverse backgrounds. The school itself is a small school with two levels, and has hallways with many nooks and crannies. Each morning, students are dropped off by family or school busses, filling the school with friendly and respectful faces.

It seemed like it happened a decade ago, but it was only three years back. It was evening; I had been laying on the couch all day in a row of pillows underneath my back and covered with blankets watching television when my mom came home from work. “How do you feel?” my mom asked with an apprehensive look.