White Board I grew up around teachers and school faculty, if I’m being honest some of them were my best friends. Of course, my mom was the secretary at my elementary school, and when I moved to the fifth and sixth grade school she moved with me. Most people would dread having the most embarrassing parent move schools just to stay with them, but it was nice having my mom there. I’m not gonna lie, there were perks. It was easier for me to come after school and work on homework or practice what we were learning, but in a way it made it harder for me to adjust when I didn’t have her there. Moving to middle school is already a difficult transition, more is expected of you, hormones are all over the place, and kids start forming their own opinions. I also always had my mom there for back-up and now I was alone. Teachers didn’t know my name anymore. …show more content…
My non-sun-kissed skin was the main thing that ruined my plans to go by unnoticed. My solution was fake tan. It looked fine, I finally received compliments on my skin tone, but I didn’t feel like myself. Little did I know that most people felt the same way I did. Everyone was just trying to fit in. One of my more honest teachers realized this and confronted the class in a way that put everything into perspective. He started his “lecture” by pointing to the back of the classroom. “See that whiteboard, I think it’s perfect. It was just cleaned and now it’s all shiny.” Immediately one of the boys in the class raised his hand and objected. “No it’s not, I see a smudge right there.” The room filled with objectifications and criticisms of the board and our teachers opinion. With a chuckle he said, “exactly.” Our teacher explained to us perspective and how everyone sees things differently. I followed his words closely, listening to the new ideas, not knowing that his words would shape the way I live my
Many young women feel pressure to always look their best, and pale skin is certainly not "in." But one woman, named Ashley Trenner, warned young girls that they should be thankful for the skin they are born with, because trying to change it could cost them their life. Trenner began using tanning beds when she was in high school, and she tanned so much that her mother begged her to stop. But Trenner refused, and for 15 years, she visited the tanning bed a few times every week.
Though Mr. McNally also teaches us something we must not do when addressing differences. In a hypocritical event, Mr. McNally encouraged our enforcement of heterosexual masculinity when he pretended to hit on a student who was dressed in a way that wasn’t considered heterosexually masculine. When the joke was put into question, he jokingly defended himself stating that “it was on everyone else’s mind.” This shows us that as teacher, in order to teach our students to be tolerant, we must hold ourselves as teachers to a higher standard. We need to make sure that we do not promote intolerance even if it is in a small offhand.
The Dichotomies of our Education “Quit bitchin.”, said a former history teacher of Duncanville’s High school to student Jeff Bliss on May 2013, when he tried to explain to his teacher that handing out children packets of information while sitting behind a desk is not a form of teaching. Jeff Bliss is a former student of Duncanville’s High school, known for boisterous classroom rant that went viral in 2013. Now of days we don’t see children standing up to their teachers when their education isn’t up to par, but as technology is advancing we get to know more about this world than ever before and we are given a wider view of the world while the quality of our education is diminishing. Students often have credulity when it comes to education
but I’ve had my moments where I am concerned about my appearance in one way or another. At one point I thought my skin was too pale but after I thought about how I would look with tan skin I decided I loved mine. Encouraging comments that I have skin like porcelain
My junior year prom I had everything like the perfect dress professionally done makeup and hair, the perfect shoes and the corsage complimented my dress beautifully, but there was one thing I seemed to be missing. I was in the main entrance to the Monarch Hotel while everyone was admiring the beautiful decorations and absorbing the exciting and thrilling vibes, I was noticing how pale my skin was compared to most girls in the room. I had not even thought about tanning before prom. Flash forward a year and I determined to be tan for my senior prom. There are
Transitioning from high school to Middle College requires a surplus of mental strength. In order to successfully transition to Middle College I had stop relying on others and become independent. At first, the thought of leaving my friends and being alone in a new school on a college campus, filled with many students is considered immensely frightening. However, I was
As a freshman the transition was some what difficult for me. These are somethings I think would be good to new for the middle schoolers that are tranistioning into highschool. First keep organized. I can 't stress that enough because if you don 't you will lose things really easy and become a real mess. Another thing is a personal opinion but I don 't think that going to your locker every passing period is a good idea.
When 6th grade came, I transferred into a Baltimore City Public School since I really wasn’t getting the education I needed at the private school. It was still rough not fitting it. I thought that becoming like the other kids would make me happy, but I was learning new things everyday and I realized in high school that being the outcast is better than being like everyone else. The journey I dealt with in high school was very emotionally tough and life changing.
Being a person of color I am naturally blessed with a great level of melanin so I struggle with the amazement of one wanting to be tan. In the materialistic world we live in today I see all types of advertisement for tanning products and I personally think that some of them are highly offensive. The obsession with being tan and having dark skin is the modern version of blackface. So many of my peers think they are going in for a “bronze” look but they are damaging their own skin and hurting others in the process. I don’t have a personal experience with the topic of tanning but so many women of color use lighting creams to get rid of their much wanted melanin.
For many adolescents entering middle school is an overwhelming and anxious experience. It's a time of transition and offers a whole new learning experience that is very different from elementary school. Students are used to being with the same students and one main teacher throughout the day in a self contained classroom. The elementary teachers get to know the students very well and a safe and comfortable
The college environment surrounded me with adult peers that revealed to me what I lacked; perspective. When discussing Junot Diaz’s accounts of life as a minority, a student from Trinidad detailed the treatment she receives because of her accent. A young veteran revealed the feelings of his fellow soldiers towards Afghans during a debate on the Vietnam War. I had always felt insightful when it came to school work, but now I felt like a child, that anything I had to offer in class was so narrow-minded I could only appear arrogant. There was only one course of action to take.
Nonetheless, teachers should be careful of integrating their own opinions. In Knox County, the county which Boehnke focused on, there were not any specific guidelines on how or if teachers should approach the topic with their students. However, she iterates that these events are happening in our own community, and we must recognize the important of these events. Lastly, Boehnke discusses that as teachers and parents, one needs to be better at having these conversations with the youth of
Before reading this chapter, I never genuinely realized how many racially offensive comments I made or how many other racial slurs there were. Growing up in my household, not too many adults filtered their conversations, so some phrases I began to repeat were due to hearing them repeatedly. I was so familiar with hearing words like “gyp”, “whitewash”, and “light bright” that eventually started saying them not realizing how other people may feel. Even during high school, I was not as culturally competent as I should have been. Going to a predominantly white high school, I had a few encounters with prejudice people.
The first day of middle school for me was both terrifying and exciting. I made a lot of new friends within the year. I remember the first day very well. I had woke up at 5;30 a.m. I was extremely tired.
The only thoughts that were on my mind were how hard it was going to start over again in a place where I didn’t know anyone. After I moved to my new school I started to make friends and I felt okay with the environment. Moving to another school taught me that you have to try to work with your impediments in order to succeed. Nowadays it still hard for me to concentrate, but you have to learn how to deal with that. Because of this, I always was waiting for my mom to ask me questions about the topics, and she also was aware of the three of us, not just one.