My life as a student has been very different than most
peoples for one main reason. I was not enrolled in a traditional school from
second to sixth grade. This factor was key to my educational experience and has
given me a different perspective on school and education in general.
The summer going into second grade, when I was 7 years old,
my mom decided to home school myself and my older brother. My mom had a
teaching license and had been a stay at home mom my entire life. My older
brother wasn’t being challenged academically and the school we were attending wasn’t
providing him a challenging environment. He hated school and couldn’t stand going each
morning. She had already pulled him out of school and was home schooling him. I
was the exact opposite, I was having trouble keeping up with the pace set for
reading and writing and my mom believed that I need to go at my own pace. She then
pulled me out of school and started teaching us math and English at home. The
issue that my mom had found was happening at our public school was a lack of
person attention to individual students. One teacher with 30 students will have
a lot of trouble working with all of the students one on one to meet there
personal needs. By home schooling us the teacher to student ratio went from 1
to 30, to 1 to 2. we go more individual attention and were able to address the
areas that needed help or needed to be challenged more.
We participated in various co-ops with the other families in
the community to expose us to science and art classes with other kids. I loved
this style of learning. It was laid back and brought myself and my brother
closer. My younger brother was right there at our side even though he was not of
school age. We were also able to see my dad more often at his work. We always
loved going to visit him as he worked for the University
of Minnesota
When I went back to a traditional school in 7th I
had some trouble adjusting because I was having difficulties focusing. I was
diagnosed with ADD and a learning disability (reading/writing) that year and it
indeed had a very big impact on my learning. My mom had sensed that I had ADD
at a young age and knew that school would not come easily for me because of
this and she was right. I have always enjoyed the social aspect of school but
have had trouble wrapping my head around the way it is set up to make us learn.
Having everyone go at the same pace through school and expect them to all learn
the same way is not how I think school should be. I enjoy learning new things
but locking everyone in a room and lecturing for hours on end was torture for
me. I’m someone who needs to be up and moving around. Because of this a
traditional school taught me one important thing and that is patience. For me
to succeed in school I needed to go in each day relaxed and know that no matter
what, I’d be free to go home and run
around at three each day!
In the end my mom was right. I didn’t learn to read
proficiently until around 5th grade and this would have held me back
huge amounts in a traditional school. My brother being challenged was also very
good for him. He is currently going into his third year at the Engineering
school at the University Of Minnesota
This is a nice narrative of your experience, but lacks any analysis of the structure of education. From the assignment: "Note: It's easy to get distracted by simply providing an account of your experiences. Be absolutely certain that your remarks focus on the structure of education and how that has and continues to impact your experience."
ReplyDeleteYou could easily fix this by discussing, for example, what it was about the structure of public education that prompted your mother to pursue home schooling. Or, when you describe your return you hint at the issue of structure, but don't adequately develop it.
Also, be sure to proof your work - I'm guessing you mean that your younger brother was *not* of school age?
I would talk more about how the laid-back environment helped you learn better. What was it about how your mom taught that made it more laid-back than the traditional school environment? When you say this Cyber Village Academy (C.V.A.). C.V.A. was a half in the classroom, half online school that my mom used to transition me back into the traditional school setting. I would change it to Cyber Village Academy (C.V.A.). C.V.A. was taught partial in the classroom and partially online.My mom used C.V.A to transition me back into the traditional school setting.
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