I always hear these stories from colleagues and friends about how much they loved school, how happy they were and how life-changing an experience it was because it brought them to a pivotal moment in their lives and ever since then, they knew they wanted to be a teacher, writer, scientist etc…  Just hearing about their seemingly magical experiences, one would think they attended Hogwarts (Where was my invitation? Perhaps my owl lost his way…?). Needless to say, my experience was not like that.  It’s not that I never learned anything or because I didn’t like the teachers. I just dreaded waking up  early every morning, going to class and feeling like I didn’t quite belong. At that age, I didn’t know how to accurately express those feelings, so the majority of the time, the problems went unnoticed.

I, along with many children currently enrolled in one of Chicago public schools, was a product of a Spanish-speaking household, which often meant that I was reprimanded for speaking English at home and asked not to speak Spanish in school. Keep in mind, I was attending a private school and, although the Latino population was rising in the neighborhood and in the school, it wasn’t enough to implement ESL classes or courses to help children integrate themselves from a primarily Spanish-speaking household to an English-only environment. They were just expected to know English or learn it as they went along.

Eventually the accent and ESL improved but I still felt I wasn’t always moving at the same pace as most of my classmates. When I finally felt like I was catching up, it was time to move on to a different topic and there I was again … one step behind everyone else. The fact that I was an introvert certainly didn’t help because in elementary school, working in groups was practically a requirement. I wanted to work alone, and they kept putting me in groups with people I had no interest in working with, mostly because they were usually ahead of the curve and made me feel insecure. Do you remember when teachers would assign something for you to work on in class? It wasn’t necessarily a timed assignment but kids would secretly try to race each other to see who could finish first. Usually the “smart kids” would finish first and hand in their assignment, leaving the rest of us in a panic, scrambling to finish our work, before we’re considered dumb by the rest of the class.

That is what my experience was like.

I was always among the last to finish and I felt something was wrong with me because of it. It was never spoken of officially, but everyone knew that those who finished last weren’t always ahead of the class.Why was it so easy for everyone else but so difficult for me?  If you were to ask me to give a speech about something, I’ll probably stumble my way through, trying to analyze everything and come up with the perfect words to make my point (that’s if I don’t panic for being forced to speak in public) but give me a pen and paper and the result will be entirely different.  Clearly everyone has a different way of learning but it took me a long time to figure that out.

This continued throughout high school. Oh, the angst-ridden memories of high school with its cliques, homework, and the embarrassing, but obligatory physical and emotional changes everyone goes through. Add a little high school drama to the mix and you’re left with a sort of survival guide for the future. No one gets out of there unscathed. I’m sure everyone (teacher’s pets included) had at least ONE bad experience in high school. Don’t lie. For me, it seemed like grades were based on how animated and chummy you were with the teacher rather than how well you performed on homework assignments, exams and how attentive you were in class. Everyone seems to reward the popular, extroverted student, the ones who were always talkative and had check marks next to “works well with others” on their report cards every semester.

“You’re so shy!” I would hear from almost every teacher throughout my years in high school. “It would be great if you spoke up a little more in class.”

“You know what else would be great? If you could learn to pronounce my name correctly,” replied the snarky voice in my head. Instead of playing up my strengths, I was encouraged to be more like them. The “Jake Ryans” and the “Heathers.” The beautiful people with perfect hair who, I’m sure had their own problems but at the time they seemed to have been planted there as a social experiment to make everyone else feel inadequate. The people who would never be seen in anything other than clothing from the Gap or Express. The never-wore-the-same-outfit-more-than-once-in-the-same-month-or-else-someone-might-realize-they-wore-the-same-clothes-over-and-over types of people that everyone wanted to be friends with.

Meanwhile, those of us who didn’t like calling attention to ourselves, the ones who probably knew the answers as well as the outspoken students were considered awkward or not as smart as the others because it took us a little longer to answer a question. We’re not awkward. We’re not outsiders or loners or depressed. We’re introverts. We may take a little longer than normal to answer a question, not because we’re dumb but because we are more analytical before speaking. I knew all I had to do was be a little more outgoing and friendly, if only to at least get teachers to learn my name but I vehemently refused to succomb to their level of phoniness and hypocrisy. Why should I have to change my personality just to get their attention? Clearly, I was channeling Holden Caufield (minus the psychotic breakdown) and I became cynical about the whole education system and its teachers.

Of course, that certainly isn’t the case everywhere. I know of many schools – and have had teachers – who genuinely cared about every one of their students – extrovert or not. The fact is that students are still failing and our schools are still far from exemplary. But does anyone have a reason why that is? Other than the fact that many students may not be performing as well as others, test scores are low and children may not be attending class as often as they should be.

In March, Barbara Byrd-Bennet, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, announced that CPS would close 54 elementary schools, name six for turnarounds and send 11 schools to share buildings with others. Apparently, Rahm Emmanuel and Byrd-Bennet think the closures are necessary because “too many CPS buildings are half empty” and that money being spent to keep underused schools open could be better spent on educating the kids in other schools, where they will have access to better tutoring services, air conditioning and libraries. Ok, sounds like a pretty sweet deal, considering most of the schools on the closings list are in low-income neighborhoods on the south and southwest sides, with fewer access to resources. But what about the kids who may have to cross gang boundaries to attend school? And will moving them to a different school in an unfamiliar neighborhood where they may continue to be ignored because of the overcrowded classrooms have any positive affect on their grades? CPS claims that consolidating schools will enable them to invest in schools receiving students and will provide them with more resources. Then again, this is coming from a mayor who won his campaign largely by promising education reform then made the “personal” decision of sending his kids to one of Chicago’s most prestigious schools.

In all the reports I’ve seen about the Chicago school closings, I’ve read testimonies from parents, teachers and activists but has anyone from the Board of Education ever spoken to students about why they’re failing or why their test scores are low? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to, oh, I don’t know, cover this issue from a student’s perspective? I don’t think there’s one clear answer as to why some kids are not performing as well as others. I know this is a difficult issue for everyone and I know the Board of Education means well but other than visiting the schools periodically, I don’t know if they have any way of knowing what the kids are learning in class and let’s be honest, how many know what it’s like to attend school with no library, little to no access to resources and extra-curricular activities in a crime-infested neighborhood with gang activity looming in all directions? Speaking to the right people and asking the right questions is the first step. Because the way I see it, it’s not the students who are failing us, the school system is failing them.