Being Enlightened
Most high school students have known their peers since middle school. These students grew up in similar environments, and have been taught the same material from history or about important figures in the U.S but, there are some who grew up knowing different people in different environments and have been taught differently. How would they feel when they are placed in an environment they do not know about?
I was born in India and I grew up in an environment different from that of America. In India all the peers I knew believed the same things I did. We believed in the same religion, we spoke the same language, and we learned the same things at school. I was only seven years old when my teacher told us how there were other countries in the world such as England and America. At that time I thought that everyone in this world would be like the people I knew around me. Then, one day my parents told me that we were going somewhere on a vacation. At hearing this I was excited because I thought I would be going to my grandparents and would be missing school. …show more content…
Soon after, we boarded a plane and many hours later, we reached the airport in Newark, NJ. Immediately, as I got off the plane, I noticed something different; at this airport there were people who not only looked different, but talked different. I was interested, but scared at the same time because I did not know what these people were saying. I understood some words they said because I heard some these words before, but I thought they were Gujarati words. I grew up learning and speaking Gujarati/ Hindi so I though some the words were part of Gujarati or Hindi. It was later that I found out that some of the words that I did understand were part of neither of those language, it was a whole different language, English. It was at school in America that the largest shock occurred to
Most high school students have known their peers since middle school. These students grew up in similar environments, and have been taught the same material from history or about important figures in the U.S but, there are some who grew up knowing different people in different environments and have been taught differently. How would they feel when they are placed in an environment they do not know about?
I was born in India and I grew up in an environment different from that of America. In India all the peers I knew believed the same things I did. We believed in the same religion, we spoke the same language, and we learned the same things at school. I was only seven years old when my teacher told us how there were other countries in the world such as England and America. At that time I thought that everyone in this world would be like the people I knew around me. Then, one day my parents told me that we were going somewhere on a vacation. At hearing this I was excited because I thought I would be going to my grandparents and would be missing school. …show more content…
Soon after, we boarded a plane and many hours later, we reached the airport in Newark, NJ. Immediately, as I got off the plane, I noticed something different; at this airport there were people who not only looked different, but talked different. I was interested, but scared at the same time because I did not know what these people were saying. I understood some words they said because I heard some these words before, but I thought they were Gujarati words. I grew up learning and speaking Gujarati/ Hindi so I though some the words were part of Gujarati or Hindi. It was later that I found out that some of the words that I did understand were part of neither of those language, it was a whole different language, English. It was at school in America that the largest shock occurred to