My Educational Journey

My memory of my education goes back to nursery school. The school was French Hall

Academy in East Austin, Texas. The rooms were divided by a wall divider. I can still remember hearing

a kid in the other room crying at nap time. There were six teachers that would move between to two

rooms and help us with the finger painting we were doing or watch the group of kids that were playing

with blocks.

In the summer of '96, I was five years old. I remember feeling really comfortable in Pre-K, the work

was a piece of cake, and my teacher was really nice to us. The only things I wasn't so good at in both

Pre-K and Kindergarden was falling asleep at nap time, so I'd lay there bored until it was time to get

back to work...which made me always tired when getting to school. In the first and second grade I

didn't feel like I was capable of completing the work, a would always get distracted. I was good at

clowning in class but I wasn't too good at doing the work correctly. I came to believe, or think that I

was somehow inferior to the other kids. As I got through to the third grade I was getting better and I

started to gain more confidence as a student. I was good at doing my work correctly, but not on time, I

would be the last one finishing up the assignment...the teacher would always have to say “Okay Malik,

it's time to turn in what you've got.”. I came to believe that I could do the work correctly, but it just

took me a bit longer than everyone else.

In the summer before both the fourth and fifth grade I moved to a different school. I

went to the school Del Valle Elementary, it was a school that went up to the sixth grade and it was a

very large building. I felt like I was starting to get old habits again, I would start to slack off and would

get behind again...they soon assigned me to after school tutoring, which I hated. I wasn't too good at

paying attention, because I was daze of and then just