Uncovering the Issues in Americas Schools
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Personal Reflections

Students tell their stories

On a cold December morning I wake up to take my ACT college entrance exam. I already don't want to take the test I am forced to go to a run down inner-city school. The school is in an ageing neighborhood where many children live with one parent; usually the mother and many of the parents receive government assistance. I enter the school and immediately notice that it is very hot in the building. I go and enter my testing room only and wait for the proctor to begin to instruct students on how to take the test. The instructor asks students if any are left handed. All the desks in the room are for people who are right handed. One student raises his hand and he is given another desk that faces him and is told to put the two desks together in order for him to have enough room for his left arm to have support of the desk. After the proctor deals with this he begins to instruct us on how to take the test. About half way through the test many students are complaining on how hot they are. The proctor tells the students they can go and open the windows; mind you it is snowing outside. Not only are we now it a hot room we now have windows open with snow coming inside the room.

 

After leaving the test I am hot, sweating and not too confident that I did as well as I know I could have done. I begin to wonder why it was so hot, why the school does not have desks for students who are left handed. It's just not fair and I know something needs to be done. I am just a teen myself I can not do too much on my own. The issues like this need to addressed. Just because I live near a school that is run down I must take a test in such conditions. Because a student is left handed there is no desk in which they can sit comfortably. In such conditions it's no wonder students in such districts as this don't succeed we don't recieve the same "luxaries" as the students who attend a suburban school. The problems that the other students and I had are not luxaries, they are just the normal things at other schools but we are treated as second class citizens

On a cold winter morning in the middle of December I woke up about 7 o'clock to get prepared to my ACT exams. I have always gone to good schools in the suburbs and I know that I have been given a great education. I entered the suburban school only worried about knowing the answers to the questions that were going to be asked on the test. The room that I took the test in had big, spacious desks that were very comfortable and helped relieve some of my testing anxiety. The test began and I did my best. I walked out of the testing place warm and feeling good about how I just done on the ACTs.

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