Personal Narrative Essay About School Tracking

If a person discovered they had been right all along, perhaps they would be pleased. After constant rebuttal and demoralization, for that person to finally be told that what they always believed in was correct, indeed, perhaps they would be pleased. But what if what they believed in was life changing? What if, what they believed in was that individual’s own oppression? To have my own beliefs finally verified, believing that school tracking was, in the words of my younger self: “evil”, causes a flood of feelings to barge in. I become inspired; inspired to create change for those students I have time to help. I become frustrated: frustrated with myself because I couldn’t put the pieces together earlier; frustrated that I couldn’t explain why …show more content…
I attempted to remove myself from the invisible pedestal the school placed me on. I tried to spread positivity for those who didn’t think they could go to college. But, there was just so much one student could do. Nobody seemed to believe it was a wrong thing to do. Everyone was already convinced that the “high achieving classes” were indeed geniuses, and the “low achieving classes” were innately dumb. Most of those who were told by the college counselors that “people like them didn’t go to college” believed it. My friends believed tracking was necessary. “You have to separate the rotten tomatoes from the nice ripe ones or they’ll all get rotten”, one friend told me. Teachers I spoke too said they understood that the tracking system caused me problems because I was a “sensitive student.” I couldn’t name my fight correctly. I couldn’t explain it in terms that made sense, because that same tracking system lacked to provide me the tools to critically analyze my situation. My last attempt was at the graduation speech. When I was told to prepare a speech for graduation I was angry and wanted to refuse because it would have been hypocritical. When drafting my speech with the faculty, they lay nervous glances at me as I read my first draft to them. One of them even said, “It’s sounds like you really hate this school”. I didn’t know I was touching upon social issues at the time. I was writing about what I felt was wrong. I pointed out that our school was seen as an underdog, a bad school, and that we held no love for ourselves. I highlighted as many talents, now I know they were different kinds of smarts, that I saw in my class. I didn’t know the correct terms to use. I didn’t how I could challenge the faculty. It wasn’t till I attended a higher educational institution that I learned the correct term, too late to help my