Will I Ever Make It?

Christine Sarkissian

English 100

Professor Rose

26/5/2015

Will I ever make it?

        It was in the fall of 2001 when I started Kindergarten at R. D. White Elementary school. My father was dropping me off in front of the school and I was anxious to go through those gates. I did not know what people would think of me since I knew hardly new English. My father was advising me that everything will be all right and before I know it, I will have many friends. I went inside those gates, walked through the quite halls with my classmates, and sat right next to the teacher’s desk. Ms. Hank written on the nametag placed on her desk.

        With the anxious look on my face, Ms. Hank gave me a warm smile and gave me nametag where I would have to write my name. It seemed like this was going to be easy enough. Since I was not too familiar with the letters I tried my best to spell my name right by sounding it out, C-h-r-e-s-t-i-n. I raised my hand thinking to myself, I was Einstein. I am the first one done, I do not need any help, because I have got this all figured out. My teacher told me “I” comes before “E”. She asked me to try again the other way, simple as that. It was dismissed as a common error and never really addressed with any importance. I continued this way until about first grade. Ms. Hank, who was also my first grade teacher, corrected and returned almost all of my class work. There was no help or explanation given to me. I do not think that she was aware of how to deal with explaining the importance of writing my name in a proper form. She did not think that I was dyslexic, because my letters were backwards. I was just wrong, and I needed to go back and fix it.

        Many of my classmates teased me at school because it took me a longer time to learn how to spell my name. They would say you are as slow as molasses in January. Participating in class activities and going to recess that day was hard for me. I was always one of the last chosen for group activities, because no one wanted to work with the slow kid on their team. Ms. Hank chose five group leaders for a reading assignment. After the group leaders were finished choosing all of their friends to work with, I was sitting alone at my desk. Then the teacher asked me which group I would like to be in, a boy from one of the groups actually said, “We don’t want her in our group ‘cause she’s stupid, and she can’t even spell her own name!” At that point, I got up and ran out of the class, crying my eyes out. Leaving him say, the meanest thing, I had ever heard from another person. This moment led to many mixed emotions for me.

        After I stopped crying, I just wanted to punch that boy in the mouth and shut him up. I had enough problems without him making them seem that much worse. My family and I moved and I changed schools. I do not remember what happened to the boy that made that comment in class. I did not understand what I was doing wrong, and how to fix it. I thought I would never learn to read or write. I became very angry and anti-social and I thought that it went on un-noticed until the beginning of my second grade year.