My junior year, which was last year, I took American History honors 1. I would say I’m an average student. I take regular and honors classes, but I ask people’s opinion on the class to see if I want to take it. An example is I asked a few people what they thought about the AP pairing and the majority of them said it was extremely difficult and makes you want to cry everyday so I most certainly did not sign up for the class! Many people didn’t have terrifying comments on American History 1 Honors so I took the course. I’m use to having a diverse classroom setting, but the first dayI walked into that class I was one of three black students. It made me feel uncomfortable and ask myself what have I gotten myself into! I had the option to drop the class and switch to regular, but I decided to give the class a try instead of judging a book by it’s cover. We had homework on the first day, may I mention history is not my strongest subject and I had no idea what I was doing! I already wanted to cry, forget the AP pairing! I decided that instead of giving up I would get all the help I could get whether it was from different teachers, friends, etc. The first week I tried to stay after for tutoring which the teacher said was fine. Right when the bell rang for dismissal I got me a textbook and began to bring out the work I needed help with. As I was doing this, my teacher informed me that she had a last-minute meeting that she just had to attend to as I needed help! She told me to email her and she would help me through there. I emailed her and never got a response back. Well she is a teacher and I knew she may have just been busy at the time so I gave her time to respond. I emailed her three times that night and she never responded. I instantly panicked. I had assignments that were due that night and the next day and I had no clue what I was doing or no help from the teacher herself. The way I overcame this problem was I prayed and asked that the Lord give me the knowledge I need to pass this class and give me understanding. Now, I know that you can’t just pray about something and then expect it to happen. You have to put in the work as well. I made sure from that moment on to ask several questions during class to make sure I understood the topic. After school, I would go home a do extra research myself for more understanding. I used different study techniques for the tests and also went to other teachers for help that taught the subject since my teacher had too much on her plate! I passed the class with an 89 and made an 82 on the exam. Yes, that is not an A, but i was more than content with my grade and extremely proud of myself for all of the effort I put in and my results that came with it. After this experience, I no longer ask for other’s opinions about certain classes. I challenge myself because I know that if I focus and give it my all, I will pass the class. I also reach out to peers and give them help because I know how it feels to be struggling with something and have no one to support you!
