Mike Rose

I did once have a teacher that was like Mr. Montez, Mike Rose's Spanish 1 teacher. I'm not going to put his real name in here, so I'll call him Mr. White. Mr White was my marine biology teacher in high school. He was a really nice guy, and he had a genuine desire to teach us about marine biology. The problem was, he was intimidated by the students. Marine biology was an alternative science class to biology or chemistry, so it was filled with lots of loud kids from the sports teams, who didn't have much interest in school whatsoever, one of those students being myself. When he got the courage to settle us down, the class was very interesting, but almost every day, we would spend about 20 minutes talking after the class had started. Voc Ed and other remedial classes are a joke in my opinion. Every student is going to struggle with one class or another. It should be up to the school and the teachers to help such students when they struggle. I was in a remedial english class in middle school, and it was completely worthless. We would come to class every day, the teacher would tell us to write a story on a piece of paper, and then he would go read his book. He didn't give us any guidance, and if we ever asked for any help with our writing, he would tell us to talk to other students about it. I have struggled my entire life with writing, but in high school, I had a great teacher, who saw my struggling, and decided she would help. I met with her after school hours, and she would help me edit my writing. I wouldn't consider myself to be a great writer by any means, but I am significantly better at it now. I think Ken Harvey and myself kind of share that problem of being disoriented. Right now I am struggling with a decision. I have always wanted to be in the army, ever since I was a little kid. And now I am trying to figure out if I should quit school and join now, or if I should finish at least an AA, and then join. I know that I am going to join the army, the question is when. College can be disorienting because the options are almost limitless. I find it difficult to decide what I actually want to study in college. High school was more structured, you have to take this many math classes, this many english classes, and some foreign language. In college, you get to decide, and you get to study whatever you want to, and for me, that's pretty tough. My educational experience was very similar to Mike Rose's.