Oh how I hated reading writing. Learning how to read and write I think would have been an exciting experience for most. For me I hated reading and writing, no matter how much of a smile it put on my mothers’ face. Reading felt like and still feels like punishment to me. I mean seriously; I am thirty-seven years old and, I am still writing papers for a class I already took and passed with a ( B) plus average. On top of that this class would be added to the debt I am currently paying for. Now tell me that’s not punishment. Every year I had to take a city board test. I remember my teacher telling my mother I was in the lowest percentile. Since then I was forced to spend hours reading and writing from a popular learning book called “Hooked …show more content…
My granny would take me everywhere. We went to the beach, carnivals, and the zoo. Every day was an adventure. My granny had a best friend whom grand daughter was coming to spend time with her as well. They thought it would be a good idea for all of us to hang out. Well normally I loved to play with other girls because around this time I was the only child, but this girl was a nerd. She wanted to read books and play school. Who in their right mind would want to play school in the summer time? She made me play the student, while she played the teacher. Every word I didn’t know she kept saying” oh my goodness you don’t that?” It felt as if I didn’t know nothing compared to this genius. As I listened to her grandmother brag to my granny, apparently she went to private school and was top of her class. She received all kinds of awards. My grandmother was praising this girl. Saying how proud she was of her. She even gave her a gift. This little girl even put me to shame by reciting Maya Angelo “I rise”. My granny was so pleased with her performance. They both were just showing this chick too much attention for me. I became jealous. I started showing my behind as they would call it. My grand mothers’ friend thought it was best for them to leave and, actually I felt the same. This chick tried to come to my granny’s home and, show me up.tuh, I kept thinking to myself “who did she think she was and, who the heck was Maya …show more content…
Now here I was a thirty five year old Licensed practical nurse. All I could think of is why do I have to go back to school? I loved my job. I had no plans of furthering my career, but to my surprise we are being cast out of the hospitals. There’s also procedures we cannot perform that we have in the past; for example assessing the patient and starting intravenous injections. When I looked at the classes I had to take I thought oh English is nothing. I knew it was going to be a breeze. After all that’s my primary language. Well to my surprise my first paper had went through its menstrual cycle and, I don’t mean the light days but, the heavy fibroid kind. It was so much red ink I couldn’t even read my paper. I found out I was the queen of runoff sentences. My past tense and present was completely mixed together. I even had the joy of being teased by my friends seven year old as I did my parts of speech homework. On top of that I was used to writing with pen and paper; not on a computer. The worst part of all was when I was timed to write a paper. Now picture me typing with my two pointer fingers like a little kid. It was embarrassing. Everyone sounded like professionals. You know the type in the court rooms that don’t have to look down at their fingers. I wanted to give up. Those young girls were so intimidating, but the one thing I had that kept me was my life experiences. I had so many stories to tell in my essays that they even drew my teachers’
Going through the alphabet day after day, practicing each letter of the alphabet, is probably what made me dislike writing so much. The summer after third grade, my parents, made me work in reading and writing books to help me improve, but I hated doing them so my skills never really improved. Ever since then, my ability to comprehend what I read has been very difficult.
In some of my classes, those subjects were occasionally used as a punishment. For example, a teacher would say, “if you don’t stop talking you will have more writing for homework”, or “since no one is listening, maybe we should stay inside and read instead of going out for recess”. These phrases subconsciously delivered the message that reading and writing is something you should not want to do or should not look forward to. In addition, reading and writing were referred to as work instead of a fun activity. Johnston (2004) said, “telling children they can have free choice time, but first we have to finish our reading, positions reading poorly simply by using the words “have to.” (p.9)”. This statement shows how reading is presented as something required and must be done before getting to the fun stuff. This exactly describes what happened in many of my grade school
It wasn’t until elementary school that I noticed I started to develop literacy skills. I was never big into reading. Writing has always been easier for me, but I would say the 2nd grade is when I realized how important being able to read and write was, to be successful in life. I really can’t remember a time that I have actually read a book from start to finish and I don’t have much literacy history, because I was the only child and I always found other ways to keep myself occupied. My parents both worked full time jobs and long hours so the subject was never pressed on me when I was at home. I was pretty responsible as a child. I would go to and from school on my bicycle, then after school, I would do my homework and my chores before I went outside to play. When I was in school, I always had a lot of friends, so reading and writing never really fit in to my schedule at all. I knew at an early age, that I didn’t really care about literacy.
I wanted to fill my time and what better way to do that then by bettering myself. With starting this new journey, I knew I would finally pursue my dream of becoming a Registered Nurse. I also knew that I wanted to pursue more than just my Registered Nurse, R.N., license; I wanted to have an advanced career. A month into my second semester, it was the one-year mark of Patrick 's passing. Memories came back from being in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit with him; I knew then that I wanted to advance my career into working with babies like my son by becoming a Neonatal Nurse
When trying to think of a positive writing experience I have had in my lifetime, particularly as a small child, I could not think of any. So I began to ask myself why is it that I do not like writing, what happened in my life for me to have such animosity towards the act. I was finally able to think of an event and realized that it had all begun in the 3rd grade. One day, as a punishment for talking during class, I was kept inside during recess and was forced to write Wise Old Owls until my hands began to cramp. For 45 minutes, I was only allowed to write the same old phrase over and over again; “The wise old owl sat on an oak, the more he heard, the less he spoke, the less he spoke the more he heard, why can’t I be like that wise old bird”. To this day I can still remember that little rhyme and to this day I can remember that same feeling I felt as a elementary school student. From that point on I have always had an aversion for writing, it always seemed like a punishment. I still do not understand how people can journal. I don’t see how someone can sit down and write an entry or a novel just for the hell of it. It seems unnatural to me, but I guess that all of these feelings are just because I see writing as a punishment, an
My first experience to literacy came as a young adult. I have always been reluctant with my education, because of the family problems I experienced growing up. The harsh treatment our family received growing up made it very difficult to study in school, my body was physically in class but my mind was not. The trials and tribulations I went through growing up as a kid continued throughout my teenage years. Dropping out of high school I believe brought upon literacy difficulty. At the age of twenty-three, I finally had enough of feeling undereducated. Living in my mother’s basement with no job and an 8th grade education, the walls started to close in on me as my frustration became greater by the minute.
No one could ever comprehend the hatred I had for reading- no one. Reading to me was just like being deathly ill, stuck inside, watching the neighbors play and know you couldn't join. On Monday morning I sat down in my teacher Mrs. Daniels class. I had a strange feeling reading would be an assignment coming up soon. I was dreading what I knew she was going to say next. “Class you will have 4 weeks to complete this book.” As I heard these words come out of her mouth I lowered myself into my seat like a turtle slowly going into its shell. I felt as if I was drowning and no one could save me until my life was over. Not only did I hate reading but I hated it even more when I was forced to. I thought in my head, “Why. Why make us read a dumb book that will do nothing but take away my social life.” Never did I know the book I was about to read would have such an impact
The story of my history as a writer is a very long one. My writing has come full circle. I have changed very much throughout the years, both as I grew older and as I discovered more aspects of my own personality. The growth that I see when I look back is incredible, and it all seems to revolve around my emotions. I have always been a very emotional girl who feels things keenly. All of my truly memorable writing, looking back, has come from experiences that struck a chord with my developing self. This assignment has opened my eyes, despite my initial difficulty in writing it. When I was asked to write down my earliest memory of writing, at first I drew a blank. All of a sudden, it became very clear to me, probably because it had some childhood trauma associated with it.
From a very young age my family never really enforced reading on me and my siblings. When I started school it was every difficult to understand what to do because English was not my first language, and I also had started school four months late. Everyone in my class already knew the alphabet, there numbers, and also how to spell their own name. I was the only one that didn’t know how to do any of that. My teacher would get mad at me for not learning it quickly enough to be at the same pace as the other children. My teacher began to grow more and more impatient with me and I became very scared. When it came time to do my homework I would
The decision to go back to school after twenty years was easy. Getting enrolled in school and moving forward with the decision was exciting and frightening at the same time. Growing up, I always knew enough about proper writing techniques to get through my English writing classes with good grades. I often helped others with their English homework and report writing throughout my middle and high school years. Growing up with my grandmother, she was one to always correct us in our conversations on proper English. The big one she would correct us on was, “she and I “or “them and I”, she was a strict one when it came to putting yourself last when asking or telling someone something that included you. When I took the assessment for getting enrolled
God knew I had what it takes to get through these two years even when I didn’t. I also had the most kind-hearted and selfless teacher in the school. Although she was over 50, her brunette bob-styled hair had never grayed through the stress we put her through. Mrs. Reeves was simply amazing. It was about 23 students in the course all with different stories leading to Health Science 101. I could tell each of their stories but to summarize, these women went through things I couldn’t imagine and they still persevered. The true role models in my life. Following in their footsteps, I studied every day for four hours, even on the weekends, just to get a ‘B’ in the class. Finally, clinicals and the CNA exams came up. My nerves were shattered. The exam administrators did not come to be amused. Five older woman who all dressed in cheap suits with shoulder pads, red lipstick, and of course, their hair in pin curl had us immediately broken into smaller groups and, in my opinion, I got the meanest
As I come to the fork in the road of my journey to become a nurse educator, the time to reflect on my professional growth is bitter-sweet. There have been exciting times on this master’s journey and not so happy times as deadlines loom, life calls, and no one seems to care about the torch you carry to finish your dreams. Whoever said this journey was easy, never attempted it with the passion, dedication, and determination to excel as I have. Trying to thinking back to the not so happy times is not easy to do anymore. I remember, years ago, when I was as a new mother sobbing uncontrollably because I hadn’t slept in days. I remember the nurse telling me that life never gets easier, but as moments in life become memories,
My parents were very strict about education. They knew their children were intelligent. So if you were not doing well in school, you were playing around. I remember every time I had to read or go to the board to answer a problem, I would always make a mistake. I believe it was due to the amount of stress and possible failure. When my teacher told my parents that I was having a problem at school they thought I was just being lazy. I was immediately punished. Reading was not a wonderful activity for me.
It seemed like a normal day when I entered Mrs. A’s AP Language and Composition class, but little did I know that she was going to assign a very important project that was going to take forever. I took my seat and wrote down what was on the board. Then I sat patiently and waited for Mrs. A to come explain what we were doing today. When the tardy bell rang, Mrs. A glided into the room and gave us all a stack of papers. She then proceeded to discuss our upcoming assignment, a memoir. As she explained the very important assignment, I wondered whom I would write about. No one really came to mind to write about and I thought for sure I would never be able to get this thing done on time. I finally decided that I would write in on my mother, Kari Jenson. I knew I would probably put the project off until the very end and do it the weekend before even though it would get on my mom’s nerves. Putting work off was just how I did everything, it worked for me. When I arrived home from school that day, I told mom about the project. I told her I would most likely write it about her and she was overjoyed.
English 101-60 has taught me many things and has helped me grow and develop my skills as a writer. It has taught me how to think more creatively and use clear concrete details. In the beginning of the semester, our first writing assignment was a narrative journal entry that focused on writing about an uninteresting moment from your life and making it interesting. This was a challenging assignment because it was a broad topic that allowed the writers to take it in any direction. I remember thinking I had no idea what I am going to write about. Once I was able to narrow down the ideas I started writing what a traumatic experience I had six years ago. This was when I underwent the surgical procedure, to remove my gallbladder. My main focus for this journal entry was to specifically elaborate on the waiting room process. I found myself to put a significant amount of effort into this assignment. After I wrote and edited this paper myself I seeked edifications from a friend of mine and one of my roommates.