I didn't know LJ had a limit on comments Pt 1chrisssOctober 29 2003, 15:44:59 UTC
When I was young I went to Daycare, just due to the complex nature of my family's working schedule. In 1986 (I think?), I went to a Catholic Elementary school. I don't remember much of Kindergarten at all, in fact, that entire year seems like it never happened. When I hit Grade 1, for some odd reason several interests came up. I had a huge interest in Road Maps, and Meteorology. Generally speaking the teachers I had for the next couple years were willing to let me explore those interests and adapt them to assignments. Grade 3 was probably my favorite, because I was established in the class enough to not really have any bullies or problems with students. I also start learning how to use computers, even though they were Commodore 64's, I liked the idea that I could type up documents and stories and modify them without having to re-write them again and again. The school introduced the enrichment program as a weekly thing for gifted students (I had no idea I was gifted, I thought it was a randomly selected class/period), which allowed me to spend more time in the Library reading up on subjects I was interested in. I even remember the summer before I started, I started exploring math on my own, completing one of our math books that we didn't manage to finish in Grade 2. Also at this point in time other things were happening in my head which probably made that year seem even better than it really was. Also another thing that seems to stick is the girls from the higher grades in that school kept wanting to talk to me during recess and gave me stuff after school. I have no idea what that was about but that seems to stick in my memories.
The next year because we moved, and my mom was working full time, I was moved to another Catholic school that was closer. This is where trouble started. It was hard to adapt to the new class, the people. I got a sense of the students feeling they were better than themselves, and although I did manage to make a few friends, the number of students in the school disliked me was much much greater. This was a theme that continued from Grades 4 to 7. I was also put in the gifted program but again, new people, and even though they tried to teach advance subjects, I lost my interest in learning for those couple years. Because of the bully situation, I did not want to do or really have an interest in doing school work. Maybe it was because the work was associated with a bad place I didn't want to go to. Perhaps it was because to the teachers at the new school, I was just a regular student so I was slapped into that group (I didn't start the gifted program until Grade 5, I assume I had to re-evaluated before proceeding in this school's program), because these teachers never saw my potential grow in front of them. At one point I had gotten threatened by the Principal of the school because I kept complaining about students who kept threatening to beat me up on the way home, and during lunch. I even remember one of my friends’s telling me about the teacher I was to have in Grade 8. Apparently the teacher shoved my friend right into the wall of a portable because a student complained about my friend during recess. The teachers also weren't that encouraging, maybe due to the curriculum or due to the fact that split grade students get half the time a normal grade class gets. Either way I felt restricted as to what I could do in my work and my interests because my area in school was being threatened and felt uncomfortable.
Because of the problem in grade school, my parents decided to put me in a Private Gifted School. I took the test managed to get in and was put in Grade 9 which was the highest grade they had available at the time (Because Grade 7/8 wasn't a split class, it contained the elements of both Grades 7 & 8 condensed into one year). With the name PACE, you would think the school would mean they teach you at their own pace. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. Immediately within the first week the work load was very different than grade school, many subjects and many concepts we were never taught in grade school appeared out of nowhere. It was hard to adjust, but I thought I could do it.
The next year because we moved, and my mom was working full time, I was moved to another Catholic school that was closer. This is where trouble started. It was hard to adapt to the new class, the people. I got a sense of the students feeling they were better than themselves, and although I did manage to make a few friends, the number of students in the school disliked me was much much greater. This was a theme that continued from Grades 4 to 7. I was also put in the gifted program but again, new people, and even though they tried to teach advance subjects, I lost my interest in learning for those couple years. Because of the bully situation, I did not want to do or really have an interest in doing school work. Maybe it was because the work was associated with a bad place I didn't want to go to. Perhaps it was because to the teachers at the new school, I was just a regular student so I was slapped into that group (I didn't start the gifted program until Grade 5, I assume I had to re-evaluated before proceeding in this school's program), because these teachers never saw my potential grow in front of them. At one point I had gotten threatened by the Principal of the school because I kept complaining about students who kept threatening to beat me up on the way home, and during lunch. I even remember one of my friends’s telling me about the teacher I was to have in Grade 8. Apparently the teacher shoved my friend right into the wall of a portable because a student complained about my friend during recess. The teachers also weren't that encouraging, maybe due to the curriculum or due to the fact that split grade students get half the time a normal grade class gets. Either way I felt restricted as to what I could do in my work and my interests because my area in school was being threatened and felt uncomfortable.
Because of the problem in grade school, my parents decided to put me in a Private Gifted School. I took the test managed to get in and was put in Grade 9 which was the highest grade they had available at the time (Because Grade 7/8 wasn't a split class, it contained the elements of both Grades 7 & 8 condensed into one year). With the name PACE, you would think the school would mean they teach you at their own pace. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. Immediately within the first week the work load was very different than grade school, many subjects and many concepts we were never taught in grade school appeared out of nowhere. It was hard to adjust, but I thought I could do it.
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