Boarding Schools

Ever since I read Harry Potter when I was ten years old, I've wanted to go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Though now that I've grow up a bit I have realized it gives a unrealistic outlook on how boarding schools actually work and how they are portrayed. When J.K. Rowling wrote the books she said she wasn't supporting the 1940s versions of boarding schools. She claimed the only reason she made Hogwarts a boarding school was because it is easier to write a novel about children without parental figures in the picture. You can see the appeal it gives to young children. They are thinking I get to go to Hogwarts away from my parents and have feasts three times a day. Also it is like you are living with your best friends during the school year (and you get to learn magic). I looked up a "real" boarding school called Wayland Academy in Wisconsin. Wayland's only goal is for you to graduate and get you into a four-year college. At Wayland they have a 100% placement rate into 4-year colleges and to get onto the Deans List you have to have at least a 4.0. The average day at Wayland's consists of waking up between 7-7:30am , then breakfast is served from 7-7:45am. Next classes start at 8:00am and end at 3:30pm, after that you have mandatory after school sports from 3:45- 5:30pm. Now you can finally have dinner and you have to have permission to go off campus. Then you are in the library and you have a Mandatory study time from 7:30- 9:30pm, then its lights out at 10:30pm. Between all of the activities you have to do I don't know where you could find time at Hogwarts to go explore the castle and defeat Voldemort. Personally I still think boarding schools would be fun but I might still be harboring unrealistic ideas about boarding schools.

Responsibilities as a Student

Some of the responsibilities I have as a student is remembering due dates and doing homework. I have to make sure I do all of these things so I get good grades. I need good grades to get into college. I have to take on these responsibilities because of all these factors.

Future Plans

One of my plans after high school is to go to Minnesota State: Mankato. At the beginning of the year I had to decide whether to go Mankato or St. Cloud. Both of them offered me money to golf for them. I decided to go to Mankato because I liked the team better and the school. I also want to major in either Marketing or International Business. I will major in one and minor in the other. The reason I want to do that is because I eventually want to own my own business.

School Success

I think one of the classes i have succeeded in school is History and Civics. They have always been my favorite subject because I love learning about t. I am kind of obsessed with politics and current events. I feel like people need to be informed about what is going on. In my opinion, ignorance is not bliss. I would rather be informed and make informed decsions about our next president. Instead of ignorant people complaining about the president they voted for because they were uninformed. Having these views I feel like I succeeded in Civics and History because of it.

Lessons Learned

I think the biggest lesson I have learned inside and outside the classroom is honesty and integrity. I have learned this lesson from golf I think. When I was 11 years old I was in a big tournment to go to the world championship. There was a girl who lied about how many strokes she had on a hole. That was the difference between winning and losing for me. From that day forward I vowed that I would never cheat in golf because it wouldnt be fair to the other people playing against me. I have also learn to be honest in school because if I cheated on a test i would feel so bad afterward.

Cultural Factors

Gender Stories

            When I was younger I joined hockey in Eau Claire youth hockey association. They didn’t have a girl’s hockey team so of course I had to join the boys. I was a mites and I know I was completely awful. I was the only girl and I could barely skate. I knew I was the worst on the team but I didn’t care because hockey was so much fun. I worked at it and I progressively got better so by my 2^nd year of hockey I dramatically improved. There was this boy who was on my team the first year that was better than me but when I came back I was better than him. He didn’t like that at all he would always be extremely rude to me and would make fun of me on the ice. One day after practice I was skating off the ice and he came up behind me a swung his hockey stick at me. He hit the back of my head and I fell to the ice. His mom was so angry at him and she almost made him quit. This was all because he I became better than him at hockey. There was one other boy that got better than him but he didn’t get mad at him. So it was obviously because I was a girl and he was getting beat by one.

Social Class

When I was younger, I classified my family as middle class. My mom is a school teacher. Since March, I have been classifying myself as lower class. I’m sure you know what I am talking about since my mom is a state worker in the state of Wisconsin. Since Scott Walker started picking on the working class it has taken a toll on my family. It is a classic situation of upper class picking on the lower class. It has definitely divided our society more. I think this has shaped my experiences because it has definitely made me more liberal than I already was. That shows how much social class had affected how people look at the world. Also since all of this happened I have realized how much money my mom spends on the essentials. It has made me pay for more stuff on my own. My family is definitely worrying about the financial status with two kids in college next year. That is how social class has affected me.

Race

I really don’t think race really affects me personally as I am never discriminated against due to the fact that I am white. I sometimes feel bad for people of color as I see they are sometimes discriminated against even today in our society. I live in the mid-west and my school and city are primarily white. As you said in class people who live in the Midwest are at a disadvantage because we live in the whitest place in the United States. Luckily, I have visited other countries where I have felt a minority. I have been to Mexico, Belize, Honduras, and many other places. I feel like I know a little bit more about different cultures and races because of it. In these countries I felt like a minority and in some case taken advantage of because I didn’t know the language. I felt like I was being watched more closely because of my color.

Religion

I was raised to be Lutheran. I was the perfect child because I went to church every Sunday and Wednesday. I went to church camp, was in the plays, joined chimes, and joined the youth group. Little did everyone know that my father forced to go to Church. I of course learned to resent. I had doubts about the Lutheran faith but I was scared to question it because everyone made me think that I was going to hell. I stopped going to church with my dad after 5^th grade but I still went with my mom. She was more laid back when it came to church. But I still had doubts so after I got confirmed I decided that the Lutheran church wasn’t for me. As of right now I don’t know what faith I am. But it took a lot of courage to finally stand up and say I didn’t want to go there anymore.