Essay on The Importance of Education I Was Left Behind Essay Example For Students

Essay on The Importance of Education: I Was Left Behind Essay By fourth grade I was already crashing and burning. Almost every student in my class was moving ahead in subjects that I seemed to be understanding less and less by the day. If education were a race where we all started at the same time; than I was quickly becoming the guy falling into last place. Truthfully, math was the beginning of the end for me. Even now, the feeling I get trying to solve simple math problems is one of frustration and embarrassment. I feel like Im hitting a mental wall. Try to imagine your mind pushing past a barrier that you could not breakthrough regardless of how hard you tried. Sort of like trying to understand someone speaking to you in a foreign language with almost no previous experience. When someone asked me to solve a problem involving long division, a deep-rooted sense of insecurity would overwhelm me. I would desperately try to understand where to begin; It was the feeling of hopelessness and it only grew over time. I slipped away from the rest of the herd around fractions and division. Its kind of funny actually; I literally began to fracture and divide from everyone else. Hephzibah Roskelly, a professor at the University of North Carolina ¬-Greensboro explains the process of separation that mirrors my own: â€Å"By third or fourth grade †¦ you and your fellow students were â€Å"tracked† by this point, grouped into classes according to the results of standardized achievement tests.† (175) I was regurgitated into the lowest levels of math in the hopes that something would stick, but it never did. I might have had ADD or a learning disability. Its really all speculation at this point because it was never formally diagnosed. I wasn’t held back in school, but I never moved forward in math. Dont worry; t. .NH: Boynton/Cook, 2006. 209-217. Print.Freire, Paulo. New York: Herder and Herder, 1970. Gourdine, Tracy â€Å"Seeing the Invisible.† American River College, January, 2005 Convocation Speech.Hibel, Jacob. George Farkas, and Paul L. Morgan. Who Is Placed into Special Education? American Sociological Association 83.4 (2010): 312-32. Jstor.org. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. .McAndrew, Donald A. That Isnt What We Did in High School. The Subject Is Writing: Essays by Teachers and Students. Ed. Wendy Bishop and James Strickland. 4th ed. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 2006. 219-226. Print.Roskelly, Hephzibah. The Cupped Hand and the Open Palm. The Subject Is Writing: Essays by Teachers and Students. Ed. Wendy Bishop and James Strickland. 4th ed. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 2006. 175-185. Print.