What was your worst year in school?
None of them were good. My k-12 expireince was best summed up by my graduation. I am chemically sensitized. The day of graduation practice I go to the gym where the graduation was to be held that weekend to find them painting it. They were even using paint with Kilz in it (a highly toxic product that kills every thing it comes in contact with) and there was no ventalation in the gym. This was after the adminastration promised me that winter (who paints inside when its below freezing outside) when I missed a month of school that they would not paint again while I was at the school. The schools answer when asked how they planned to rectify the situation was well they painted the gym every year for graduation so it looked good and they could not stop now. After much hell raising they agreed to keep all the doors open to air it out but they did not do it. Perhaps if they had stopped painting when I discovered them and aired it out I could have attended my graduation. As it was when graduation day roled around I could not go near the gym. They thought I should sit in a chair outside the gym listening through the door and come in to get my diploma. I could not because even outside the door I reacted to the paint. I finally stormed away crying and hid in the band room at the other end of the school for a half hour. The worst part was only one person in the entire administration seemed to have a problem with what happened. The genral consensus was it is not our problem.
I suppose if I had to choose a worst year it would have been 7th grade. My middle school was broken into houses. 2 full houses and a half house. That year I was put in the half house. I was always have the same 30 students in all of my classes(full house the classes were mixed up with about 80). I quickly ran out possible friend and was teased continually. I was severely depressed. The only good thing that came out of that year was my AS diagnosis.
I suppose if I had to choose a worst year it would have been 7th grade. My middle school was broken into houses. 2 full houses and a half house. That year I was put in the half house. I was always have the same 30 students in all of my classes(full house the classes were mixed up with about 80). I quickly ran out possible friend and was teased continually. I was severely depressed. The only good thing that came out of that year was my AS diagnosis.
To be honest with you, fumes from paint aren't just an AS issue but a safety issue in general. Whenever we have painted in our house, we've always opened the windows and put fans in to get the fumes out. Breathing paint fumes isn't at all safe for anyone. They should be reported to OSHA for that.
Schools do tend to make promises they have no intention of keeping just to keep the parents from complaining. Private schools are especially guilty of this, since there's alot more at stake. I remember in 5th grade when a group of boys who weren't interested in sports were forced to spend our P.E. classes and often afternoons cleaning up the school ground. When it was causing me problems with my 5th grade teacher, my mother complained to the principal about it and he promised I would never have to clean up trash around the school again. That lasted 2 weeks but luckily for me, my parents had already decided to take me out of that school at the end of the year.
I have no faith in alot of organized education these days. It's run by people who have their own agendas which have little to do with teaching.
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PrisonerSix
"I am not a number, I am a free man!"
The medieval times of high school times, where teenagers ruled the world. In those times I was often noticed of the fact that I 'missed the social boat'. I was never bullied, but clearly endured another evolution than most other kids. It also didn't lead to depressions, but was often unhappy and yearning for an improvement of my life. Luckily it didn't affect my grades.
My worst year in school was my junior year in high school. This year of mine presented a myriad of problems for me. Lots of kids teased me like crazy (can you spell namecalling?). Aside from that, I got a cold on the day of a pep rally that I helped out in, I had a hard time managing my anger, I got suspended from school for two days due to some incident in the cafeteria, I had lots of trouble paying attention in classes, and my sister just wouldn't leave me alone.
Along with these, two holiday gifts of mine broke after a short period of use, one being a discman radio I got for my birthday, and another one being a pair of Wireless headphones I got for Christmas. Thank god this year is over and done with.
McJeff
Deinonychus
Joined: 4 Nov 2005
Gender: Male
Posts: 361
Location: The greatest country in the world: The USA
5th - I was in a tiny private school called Norbel. Norbel's calling point was individualized curriculum... also, it went through middle school, but combined 1st thru 3rd grades, 4th thru 6th, and 7th and 8th. About midway through 5th grade, my friends - all of whom were in 6th - hit puberty. Suddenly I wasn't one of them anymore. Combine that with having a fight with one of them, who was popular because his mom let him have a sleepover party every Friday, and the entire class teased me for the rest of the year. I never got beat up or attacked or anything because there were 2 teachers in a 9 kid class, but they did move me to the teacher's table to do my work.
6th - did I mention that a big part of the problem with 5th grade was the teacher? Well I had the same teacher. Norbel used a point system, where kids earned points for doing their work, and lost them for behavior infractions... a petty teacher could ruin a kid's points big time, and my teacher had disliked me for a long time. This year, though, it got so bad that I stopped caring about points. And when I stopped caring, I realized that short of charging me points, they didn't have any means of disciplining me. They didn't ever call parents. So I threw textbooks across the room, smashed the teacher's coffee mug, broke overhead lightbulbs with one of those long rulers, shouted profanity at the top of my lungs, left for the bathroom whenever I wanted without asking permission, ignored the fact that I wasn't supposed to go out for recess and went anyway...
8th - I was in a magnet middle school, and they had a class called "Wellness". Wellness coincided with lunch - one third was a classroom lesson, one third was lunch, one third was a sort of Phys-Ed thing. By now, all the other kids were finished puberty and I hadn't even started yet. So they were all twice my size, I had nothing in common with any of them, and I made a good victim because I couldn't have fought back even if I knew how. The teacher couldn't control those kids at all. 8th was mostly ok, but I dreaded Wellness. Finally it got so bad they switched me around different classes to try and find one where I fit in, but middle school kids smell vulnerability better than animals. Finally I ended up sitting at the guidance councelor's table with all the other rejects.
9th - For the first half of the year I was in Baltimore Lutheran. I wasn't religious, and Lutheran made me violently anti-Christian and had effects on my behavior. Plus I hit puberty and tried to rush through it in 3 months or so, so I was emotionally wired and kind of a loose cannon. I got thrown out of Lutheran because I was uncontrollable. I joined a performing arts magnet high school, and had some trouble fitting in at first, but it slowly got better over the year. 10th grade was generally unremarkable, and I managed to get popular in 11th and 12th.
I didn't do college in any sort of order, but I had one really bad semester. I don't know exactly what happened, I just couldn't focus on my work at all, I ended that semester with a C and 3 Fs. I couldn't drop the classes because of some army related stuff... different topic so I won't go into it.
CockneyRebel
Veteran
Joined: 17 Jul 2004
Age: 50
Gender: Male
Posts: 116,973
Location: In my little Olympic World of peace and love
Grade 10 was the worst year for me. The LD, Behaviorr Disordered and Special Needs Students were all put into the same Assistance Room, which was originally reserved for the LD Students who were Mainstreamed in a lot of their Classes. Nobody got any work done, in that Room, because there were as many problems as there were, Students. That was also the year that I've taken what my Dad told me about not being able to be sucessful at most Jobs in the Workforce, because of my AS. I fell into a deep Depression, lost interest in London and I've started Daydreaming smoking Pot in 1967 San Francisco. My Grades fell, Mid Year, due to the fact that I was listening to Protest Music and drawing Peter Max type pictures, instead of doing my Homework. I didn't care about my appearance, as much. My Hair got a little longer, my clothes weren't as conventional. It got to the point, where my Dad called me his Little Hippie, instead of getting me much needed help, a year later, when I was in Grade 11. It would have taken me a month to get back to my Jolly Old Self, had I recieved the much needed help. I wasn't back to my old self, until I was in my second week of College. So, I'd have to say that Grades 11 and 12 were pretty harsh on my Spirit, as well. I wanted to set an example for the less functioning students in my College class, by being my best self, possible. I really did it for me, though. By the time I was finished my first Work Experience, I was Daydreaming about London, once again.
In terms of being harrassed by others: My worst years had to be 7th and 8th grade when I was sent to some very run down Catholic Schools. Not only did my parents had to blow so much worthless money, but it was the first time in my life when I was getting Ds and Fs on my report card. And because of the very tiny class sizes, I couldnt find alot of people who could relate to me, nor did I have much of an option when it came to friends. I had a best friend during both years who was always outshining me and as far as harrassment and criticism went, my few friends werent acting much different from the bullies.
In terms of self esteem: I became really depressed an incapable of doing a whole lot in grades 11 and 12. My depression and low self esteem was so bad that I was losing a lot of friends in the process. I failed certain classes and I was also trapped in a very badly possessive relationship.
As for the other years, there was alot of bad stuff that happened but good stuff would happen during those years too. So I guess they were neutral years for me.
[Please forgive me for not reading the first four pages of this. Actually, I should not be posting to forums at this time, I should be doing homework.]
My worst year of school is definitely this one, my freshman year of college. In elementary school, I was the quiet smart kid. In middle school, I was the quiet overachiever who seldom knew what was going on around her. In high school, I was the silent academic superstar everyone knew the futility of approaching. Now, in college...I am "very good at math and science" but frequently recommended for counseling due to my zygotic level of social interaction (a.k.a. do not ask me to utter a complete sentence). What in the world would I want to get counseling for? I like how I am! It is far from my problem if they (or a job interviewer, or whoever) cannot appreciate it. I just want to be left alone. (Preferably without useless time-filling schoolwork.)
Even a padded room would be okay as long as I got good food and sufficient writing/drawing materials. That is assuming that my hands were not bound by a straightjacket and could make use of the writing/drawing materials...
Sorry for the sudden, mostly non-constructive expression of displeasure.
Junior year in high school, but it wasn't because people teased me. By high school, no one teased me at all but liked me from afar. Junior year was hard due to family problems, then my own crap, and school on top of all that. I also went into the hospital several times that year and spent a good deal of time in out-patient, too.
Although the worst time of my life was the summer between Sophomore and Junior years. Severe depression, brief psychotic episode, complete and total isolation, spending most of my time hiding in my basement room and only coming out for food or to take my daily five mile walk.
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My Science blog, Science Over a Cuppa - http://insolemexumbra.wordpress.com/
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7th grade. I finally got so fed up with everything that I just quit. I couldn't explain what I was feeling (if I had, I probably would have been saved years of wondering what the heck was wrong with me), so I just quit. I refused to go to school. My parents had to drag me there and threaten me with the truant officer. I wouldn't talk at all at school. I would read a book and nothing else. This, of course, led to months of psychological testing on top of the years of shrink visits because of how I acted everywhere else, which led to no answers because I just couldn't explain feelings, so I finally got put in a classroom with just three other kids (I didn't care if it was a resource class, it was quiet and there weren't any fluorescent lights). I was told I had a mind like a Porche, I just didn't know how to drive it, so they were going to help. And they did. It was amazing how well I did in school when they catered it to me instead of making me fit into some stupid conveyor belt . Of course, I then had to leave intermediate school to go to high school, and it started all over again.
And then in college I finally got the answer: Asperger's Syndrome. It has its own problems now that I know, but not enough to cancel out the benefits.
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Superman wears Jack Bauer pajamas.
In 7th grade social situations seemed to get exponentially more complicated, and I also completely lost interst in school. They were pretty much just handing out busy work and babysitting in middle school.
Also, freshman year of college was a big shock. I was now around large crowds of people a lot of the time, but felt more alone than ever. It seemed like if I didn't want to hang out with 20 other people then I had to be by myself. It's hard to find like-minded people when you're shy.
Preschool was hell. I read the newspaper in preschool, which was not exactly the norm...I remember playing with Lincoln logs by myself and sitting under the slide in the classroom a lot. I don't remember any of my classmates from preschool. Kindergarten at my first was fun, but then my dad got transferred, so I started school at this hick school where no one even knew the alphabet. First grade was also horrible. My teacher refused to believe that I had any intelligence at all, so she would make me read these very stupid, easy stories over and over. Hardly anyone in my class knew how to read and I was reading at a fifth grade level, and I couldn't get into the gifted program, so I had to work at the pace of everyone else. My entire elementary school career was attempt after attempt into getting into the gifted program. The rest of elementary school was awful as well, as was middle school. High school isn't so bad. I rather like high school. The only thing that jars me is the stress, which I've been having a hard time with lately. I've been having panic attacks in class.
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