My Academic Transition
By: Cam Hall
Before I took normal level classes in school, I was in special needs classes during all of my elementary and early middle school educational life. I was placed in these classes because of my learning disabilities and my unusual behavior. One of my learning disabilities was not being able to process and understand information right away. In addition, one aspect of my unusual behavior was strange bodily movements, such as rocking back and forth. In these classes, I did a lot of simple assigments, took not too challenging quizzes and tests, and overall performed well in them. I enjoyed being in these classes and didn't want to be placed out of them at all. However, in the future, I would face a nerving event that I felt, at the time that it happened, that I wasn't prepared for. This event was that I was going to be taken out of the special needs classes and put into regular academic classes. This was something I had earned due to my outstanding performance in my special needs academic classes, during the sixth grade.
During the first half of my first year in middle school, I was placed in special needs classes as I usually had been in elementary school. In these classes, I performed very well academically and stood out from the majority of the other students. Once the middle of the school year came about, my special needs teacher, Mrs. Ludwig, spoke to one or both of my parents about how well I was performing in her classes. In addition, she said that she felt as though I had the skills and the potential to do well in and be put in the normal level academic classes in the school. Both of my parents felt happy with what she said and they both agreed with her thoughts. My parents felt at this time that moving into the regular level academic classes would be a great step for me to take while I was still in grade school. When I eventually heard about what my teacher and my parents wanted to happen to me, I felt very unsure and doubtful as to if this transition would actually be a good for me in the big scheme of things. I was worried that I might not be able to handle what was expected of me in the normal level classes. No matter whether I wanted to go through with the transition or not at the time, I still had to go through with what was required of me.
Once I finally was in and had all normal level classes, I was thinking about what might be expected of me and how much of a difference these classes would be from the special needs classes. I hoped that what I was going to face in these classes wouldn't overwhelm me and make me get stresses out easily. Eventually, I realized that the normal classes included similar learning concepts like from my other classes, with some differences, that I could easily understand and I applied all of the same basic that I carried with me back in the other classes to do well in the normal level classes. In addition, I was able to perform well on the quizzes and tests that were handed out to me in my new classes. As I moved along in these classes, I also became more familiar with what was constantly expected of me as a student and I felt confident that I had what it took to do well in these normal level classes. After I got through the transition, I kept up my hard work all throughout the rest of middle school and high school. Due to my great academic skills and undertanding of important educational concepts, I was able to graduate from high school with flying colors and end up in college at Bridgewater State University, which was my primary choice over all of the other places that I had applied to go to.
Finally, since the beginning of my freshman year of college, I have been able to do well on a number of assignments in my classes and understand certain things that my professors have taught me, which is all due to my great academic abilities and determination to do well in college. In addition, I don't think that I would be in the position that I am in right now if I didn't make the transition back in the sixth grade. This is something that I now fell grateful towards for happening to me in my life.
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