For a child, the first things they think about are toys, or games, or maybe even coloring. During the first few years of a child’s life, the presence of education is there, even though we do not realize it. The main focus of a parent is watching over their kid and teaching them the basic morals and simple speech. As I was growing up, my parents have been always there supporting me in everything that I do. Since the beginning, I was learning and still am learning new information every days. I was and still am the daughter of a Salvadorian pair who had no intentions of me flunking out of school.

When I was nine months old, my mother and father began to show me how to use my feet to crawl and walk. They showed me the process of using pressure on one foot while the other swings to a farther spot than where the first foot was. By the time I was ten months old, I already knew how to walk. I would use my ability to run, jump, and kick things off of the furniture. When I did something bad that was worth a lecture from my parents, I was sent to sit at the time out corner and reflect on my misbehaving actions. Though I did some bad things, my parents still loved me to death, but the sense of education was there. My first language was Spanish, I only knew how to speak it not write it. So my mother decided to teach me English and writing letters at the same time. A month after my fourth birthday, my mom would sit down with me to practice writing the alphabet during the nighttime hours. I was excited at first because the thought of writing caught my attention, but then it started to get boring and traumatizing. My mother began to get impatient with me because I couldn’t write the letter “W” or I kept writing the letter “S” backwards. Most of the time, I would confuse the sound that “Q” makes with the sound that “U” makes. This would irritate my mom so much that she would start to yell at me because I could not get it right the first time. After the first few times, I would ask if I could use the bathroom then lock myself inside the bathroom for like an hour and cry to myself. I would get frustrated because it was hard to think with an English mind when Spanish was already a part of me. Because of that traumatizing experience, I worked hard to write the alphabet correctly and pronounce the words in English the way they are supposed to be pronounced.

Soon after that, I started Kindergarten. I was prepared and confident because I was already exposed to the material that we were going to learn for that school year. Since I already knew how to speak two languages, I automatically thought that I was ahead of the game and that every kid in my class was behind. Once we got to the learning process, I would confidently write my name on my worksheets and complete them with well explained answers, or so I thought. When some of the students would talk, I would talk back to them in Spanish. With a puzzled face, they asked what exactly did I say to them. Hating to repeat myself, I rephrased the comment in English with a forced tone, thinking that they understood what I said the first time. After a couple of similar incidents, I was scolded by my Kindergarten teacher. She said, “It is unacceptable to speak in such a language that no one could understand”. When I heard those words come out of her mouth, I felt that a ton of bricks fell on me. As the year went by, I was constantly reminded to not include my native language with any of my school work. Throughout elementary school, my desire to speak Spanish faded away. Soon after, my native side became uncommon and I adjusted to the American side.

At the beginning of fourth grade, I transferred to a different school. From the first day of my new school, the ambience felt different, it was not like how my old school was. In my new school, it did not matter if I spoke Spanish or English. The reason for that is because the school was pretty diverse, it opened the door for me to express my culture to others without any restrictions. I treated others with respect and in return, I gained respect from them. Once I reached fifth grade, things got a little more complicated. Math and Language Arts were one of the two most difficult subjects for me. The teacher was teaching this one method to solving an equation, but my brain did not captivate it, I was still stuck on a different method that I was taught in elementary school. On the exams, I would show my work in the format of the first method I learned. Because of this, it drove my teacher nuts. She demanded that I must do it the way she taught the class how to do things. For Language Arts, I struggled with writing papers. My other teacher would constantly ask me if I needed help with anything but I would refused, due to the fact that I was raised to work independently. Because of my arrogance, I nearly failed the class since I didn’t do so hot on my essays. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I asked for help from my Language Arts teacher. She gladly took time to help me recognize my errors. Soon after, I had an A in the class.

During my middle school years, I was repeatedly asked to take a test to make sure that I didn’t need to be in ESOL. At first, I was thrilled because I got to show off that I knew the English language, but it got annoying as time went by. It got so annoying that it made me mad. I had already proven to the school that being in ESOL was unnecessary for me. It sort of offended me; was I not fit as an ordinary student? When it was time to register for classes for eighth grade, I signed up for Algebra 1. The school told me that I was not ready for a high school class while being a middle school student. I worked really hard in math along with the assistance of my math teacher, I proved the school wrong once again. I became qualified to take Algebra 1 for my eighth grade year. I felt like I won against the school because I showed them how capable I was to take such class.

Once I entered high school, things were completely different. I was surrounded by older students, basically young adults. The classes were much harder, there was a double amount of homework given, and I would take classes that not only had students in my grade but students from the grade above me as well. Mostly all of the classes I took were honors classes. I took these types of classes because I wanted to go far and beyond of my standards and I wanted that .5 for my GPA. Other students who took honors classes only did it to look smarter. The majority of my class was filled with people who wouldn’t study to save their life, didn’t want to do the work, and complained about the work load. Sometimes I would ask myself, “Why are they even in this class?” I don’t know why but it would irritate me so much that it made my blood boil. Because of those students’ laziness, the comment that I hate with all my soul is the comment that teachers would say, “I expect you to know this because you are an honors level class.” Just because it is an honors level class, doesn’t mean that everyone knows everything, just thinking about it makes my head spin. It got to the point where I ignored those comments and just began to work even harder. That gave me motivation to step up my game and over achieve my standards. I didn’t let myself drown with a whole bunch of students who had no desire to learn and teachers who just liked to be the nightmares of students. I am now where I want to be at, passing all my classes and a guarantee that I will graduate with an advance diploma. I still have not beaten education, but I will, soon enough.