“You must get an education. You must go to school, and you must learn to protect yourself. And you must learn to protect yourself with the pen, and not the gun”(Josephine Baker). Growing up in Southwest Philadelphia and Upper Darby, I have seen a lot of my peers turn their backs on education due to the hardships of their urban school environment. Due to the poor education system and their circumstances, they decided to head towards street life such as selling drugs and gun violence. In exchange to street life, many of my peers have passed away or ended up in prison due to their poor choices. I was lucky enough to be apart of a great school known as Upper Darby High School, but I still faced a lot of hardships such as dealing with discrimination
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In the beginning of the semester, she and I had a couple fallouts, which resulted in me getting kicked out of class. Never in a million years did I envision myself asking her for help. During our conference, I told her about my struggles with writing and previous academic adversities. I talked to her about being in a high level class and feeling confused, misunderstood and out of place. I talked to her about the importance of education and graduation in my family. I talked to her about my struggles with depression and anxiety. I talked to her about everything. Surprisingly, Ms.Lori understood me. She was able to relate to me and advise me to start going to tutoring sessions she offered after school. She was able to do something for me that no one has ever done for me before, which was reassuring me that struggling was okay. She explained to me that “Shit happens”, and that it’s fine to be a little behind sometimes. What’s important is that I get help when I need it and learn from it. After her inspirational speech, I broke down and sobbed. At this point, I was willing to work with Ms. Lori everyday on my graduation project. She helped me pick my topic, which was about Jean Michel Basquiat. She taught me the pros and cons of research writing and how to properly write a research paper. She gave me the guidance that I could not provide for
In the beginning of the semester, she and I had a couple fallouts, which resulted in me getting kicked out of class. Never in a million years did I envision myself asking her for help. During our conference, I told her about my struggles with writing and previous academic adversities. I talked to her about being in a high level class and feeling confused, misunderstood and out of place. I talked to her about the importance of education and graduation in my family. I talked to her about my struggles with depression and anxiety. I talked to her about everything. Surprisingly, Ms.Lori understood me. She was able to relate to me and advise me to start going to tutoring sessions she offered after school. She was able to do something for me that no one has ever done for me before, which was reassuring me that struggling was okay. She explained to me that “Shit happens”, and that it’s fine to be a little behind sometimes. What’s important is that I get help when I need it and learn from it. After her inspirational speech, I broke down and sobbed. At this point, I was willing to work with Ms. Lori everyday on my graduation project. She helped me pick my topic, which was about Jean Michel Basquiat. She taught me the pros and cons of research writing and how to properly write a research paper. She gave me the guidance that I could not provide for