It just reminded me of everything I went through in school.
This actually gets really interesting for me, so here's a little bit of my story. I went to schools in the Middle East, Kuwait and Lebanon, and the U.S. So I have experienced different cultural educational backgrounds in both sides of the world when it comes to this subject.
In Kuwait, I was still very young I went to Kinder and spent a little time in 1st grade before we moved. 1st grade was a bit tough on me it was Pakistani English based... something about their educational system did not work for me. All I can say is that I enjoyed Kinder way too much! It was at an American International school, I loved my teachers and it's what a kindergarten experience should be all about- numerous fun school activities, educational field trips to the Zoo/factories/companies, and a lot of outside playing!
In Lebanon, I was there from 1st grade to 5th grade. Surprisingly I did very well, the Arabic and French classes came very natural to me. I was always the first getting A's in class. It wasn't until 4th/5th grade that I started having trouble memorizing paragraphs. A specific history teacher that I remember would make us memorize a whole chapter just to call us out in front of the class and say it by heart, like if it was a poem. I remember being stressed by it.
Now to think about it, it was so irrelevant and saw no point of it, because I don't remember any of it. Plus they would hit us on the hand with a ruler if we disobeyed and didn't get homework done. Other than that homework was reasonable and loved that we got to go outside with our classmates everyday for lunch and gym.
We came to the U.S. in 2003. I experienced major culture shock. The first school I attended and a couple of other schools I went to, I got bullied and it took me pretty slowly to get the hang of school in America. Very different from what I was use to. Things eventually came along but I was still lonely in my school years up until I graduated high school. I wasn't the A student that I was in Lebanon anymore.
I was faced with different types of homework, I performed horribly in math, I had to re-take the Taks 3 times for Mathematics in order for me to receive my diploma. I took dual credit classes in high school, because a part of me wanted to look forward to college and the other part of me, somewhere along the lines I lost that drive. English classes in high school and college brought me to highly dislike writing, because of how much essays were assigned to us.
I didn't even bother with AP classes anymore because I was doing too much.
I don't want to go in to every detail, but college was the most difficult for me. There was so much work to do in subjects I wasn't even interested nor majoring in. Such as the first two years in college. The general requirements. And then as a junior is when you actually study the field you're majoring in. But for me I did 3 years for my associates because I was also a young mom.
Gosh the struggle was real! Thankfully I had my husband there to help me, but it still wasn't easy. Our daughter had health issues (Thank God she is doing much better now) while I was trying to get through school. Now fast forward to today, our daughter is in kinder, our baby boy was born this year, and I still have yet to obtain my Bachelor's.
Bottom line, I definitely felt the pressure in school to get good grades for me to get to the next step. I know how much time consuming school work could get. Now that I have my kids, I see that balance is very important. I hope they're not assigned to so much work, so life is balanced in every aspect of their life, school and outside of school.
Instead of drowning our children in homework like some of the kids I've seen in this documentary, I hope our kids get that chance to have time for family, friends, and being out in nature so that somewhere in between the ropes they discover their passions, and hard work could be put towards that specific passion.
Sorry I know my writing was all over the place, but it's just something I wanted to touch on.
Maali ❤
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