Prompts

Prompts

Week Five

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You are in the car waiting in line, watching the crowds of girls walk up the stairs and up the grass into the building that looks like a castle or Hogwarts, scared, nervous, and excited. You are happy to be back at the place you have spent almost your whole life at and to see the people you have spent that time with. You are excited to go back to your everyday routine. Happy to put your uniform back on. Although going here is old, this next step is something new, a big change. 

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You are the youngest one again. You have so much more freedom and not nearly as many rules as you have had previously. You get a choice of the classes you can take. You are scared, nervous, and excited. 

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When you arrive you see familiar faces mixed with a bunch of scared and unfamiliar faces. You are scared, nervous and excited for those new people. Your teachers will be warm and happy to meet you but will give you much more responsibility that you have had in the past. 

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When an unfamiliar face asks you to help her out you welcome her warmly and bond about first day gitters. She is lost and very confused about where everything in this only building with new features inside of it. 

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You are about to start class with a teacher you have always seen walking around in the hallways and in the cafeteria but have never met and never thought you would ever be old enough to be sitting in her class. You are scared, nervous, and excited. 

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Week Six

file:///Users/ryanmorgan/Downloads/private%20vs%20public.pdf

Week Seven

I was asked to re read my whole paper and look for grammatical errors. 

The United States offers two main types of school for children under the age of 18, public and private schools. Personally, having gone to a private, all girls, school that required me to wear a uniform my whole life (14 years), I do not know much about public school. Private schools are known for their small classes, liberal arts education and high tuition costs, where as public schools are known for their large classes, bigger schools and basically, free tuition.

Ever since I can remember, my morning routine has been the same until this year. I recall me waking up, putting on my uniform and going to the Baldwin school. I loved everything about it. It was a place where judgments were thrown out the window and I did not need to worry about impressing anyone. I could simply be myself and focus solely on getting the best education possible, not what shoes looked nicer with my outfit.

My graduating class of 52 girls, or sisters as we called ourselves, was an extremely tight knit group. The schooling I went through prepared me for college both academically and socially speaking. All of my teachers were very dedicated to their student’s success and the subject they were teaching. They were genuinely interested in the well being of their students and wanted them to succeed in every way possible. They were extremely skilled in their fields of learning, even though private schools do not require a teaching certification. I can honestly say that I had a great relationship with every one of my teachers. Our small class sizes made way for very close student-teacher relationships; my biggest class being 16 girls. Although I am blindly because I never went to public school, and biased because I experienced so many great things, I would not change my years at Baldwin for anything. I believe any other schooling could come close to the experiences and memories I have from Baldwin. Baldwin taught me to be an independent, strong, confident, women. And, as you can see I can talk about Baldwin for hours.

Now, of course there are many different private schools, college prep day schools, boarding schools, military academies, special needs and art academies, but I will focus on college prep schools. These schools are highly selective and according to an article by greatschools.org, private schools are “by their very definition, selective. They are not obligated to accept every child, so getting admitted may involve in-depth applications with multiple interviews, essays, and testing.” Besides academics, private schools admit students based on their racial and religious backgrounds. Compared to public school, private schools are known for a great deal of things. Smaller class sizes where each student receives attention, large amount of extracurricular activities, high tuition, and most likely a uniform. According to an article in the New York Times, private schools “because of their low student-to-teacher ratios, can focus on each student’s specific needs, helping each child reach his or her potential.”

Public schools, on the other hand, open their doors to everyone who lives within a specific geographical boundary. Teachers that teach in public schools do have to in fact be certified and go through state training to be informed about teaching techniques. Unlike private schools, public schools do not cost any extra money to attend. According to the same article mentioned above by greatschool.org, public schools are “often underfunded operations influenced by political winds and shortfalls. Financed through federal, state, and local taxes, public school are a part of a larger school system, which functions as a part of the government and must follow the rules and regulations set by politicians.” Grade sizes and individual class sizes in public schools are generally bigger, making it hard for students to build good relationships with their teachers. Not all public schools have the means to help students that have special needs or learning disabilities making it hard for students who have these setbacks to flourish.

I organized an interview with one of my roommates, Jessica, and asked her questions about her experience attending public school throughout her life. I first asked her if going to a public high school was her choice and she responded “It was mine, my mom’s and my dad’s choice. I actually considered going to private school for high school but the public school in my area is very good academically so I did not feel the need to switch, pay thousands in tuition, and make new friends.” I listened as the conversation flowed to how many people were in her grade and individual classes and what the pros and cons were to having large classes. She answered “I had 270 people in my grade and there were anywhere from 24 to 30 people in my classes. The pros of having a large number of people in my grade were I would always have people to be with in class or outside of class and everyone lived near one another. The cons being, I didn’t know everyone in my grade personally.” I was curious to see if Jessica’s public school education prepared her for academics in college. She said that her school did not do a great job in this regard, “I took many free periods in the morning so I never had to wake up early for classes. I had never written more than a four-page paper in high school and now I have to write seven to eight pages papers and I find it very difficult.”

Working on this paper, doing research, and speaking with Jessica, have shown the similarities and differences between the two types of schooling. I learned a lot from my interview, as well as the research I did to prepare for it, and found it interesting to see a different side of the argument.