"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain."
— Maya Angelou
This story is based on my experiences from fourth through ninth grade. I transferred schools prior to fourth grade, seventh grade, ninth grade, and tenth grade. I was in four different programs and four different schools in 7 years. It was a stressful and unhappy period of my life that was lonely and confusing. I didn’t do terrible in school but neither did I do well. Every time I transferred the classes picked up somewhere different and I feel like I missed out on a lot because of those transfers. I don’t think that I had a lot of bad teachers but there was never a teacher that got to know me personally that tried to figure out where I was academically and what I needed to help me learn.
One Upon a Time, there was a little girl who was lost. Not lost in the traditional sense that no one knew where she was, but in the sense that she did not know where she was going.
She had had a friend who had told her about a school where all they do all day is sing, and draw, and play. “All you have to do is audition! You sing for them and perform for them and if you’re good enough they let you into the school!” She exclaimed. She then proceeded to perform her monologue she was going to use for audition. The little girl had run home full of excitement. Her parents had been skeptical but could see how important this was to their little girl. They signed her up for an audition and proceeded to fulfill their promise to encourage the little girl in whatever path she chose to take. This path was Transfer.
This was the spark that lit a roaring flame of change in the life of that little girl. She spent two years in that school of performing arts. She was able to sing and act and draw and play every day. What she was not able to do was learn. They had academic classes in the school of course, but the performing arts took precedence. She was taken out of reading to practice her solo. Math was canceled for a whole week to make time to rehearse for the dance recital. Her Social Studies presentation on Rhode Island was pushed back for weeks to make time to travel and perform their Winter play.
When the time came for that little girl to go to middle school her parents decided enough was enough. They had pledged to support their little girl in whatever path she chose, but they had also sworn to protect her, to guide her, and to ensure she received a proper education. This led to another audition; this led to an exam that took hours, testing her academic capacity, and resulted in Transfer.
The next two years were lonely for that little girl. She found herself surrounded by students who had spent their whole lives together, and who didn’t have the desire to adopt a new friend into their circle. The little girl spent recess alone with her books. She studied and she wrote, and she thrived academically. She found the academic challenges that had previously been lost to her. But the little girl was unhappy. Please she begged her parents, please let me go to another school. Let me go back to the friends I knew before the first Transfer. Let me take it all back and let me start over. Eventually, her parents, seeing their little girls unhappiness, relented, and allowed her to enroll in a high school close to home, where her sister went to school, and back to the life she knew before Transfer.
Poor little girl. She would learn at this time that ‘you can’t go home again’ (Thomas Wolfe). People change and you can’t make choices based on emotion alone. The little girl didn’t think about how much she had loved the academic challenges in her middle school. She had forgotten that she had lost touch with the friends she once knew. All she thought of was starting over. This Transfer back home was not a return to the beginning but a turn further down the road. The little girl stopped trying in school. The work was too easy, she didn’t need to study, she didn’t need to try. She hung around other angry little girls and boys who got in trouble; who got her in trouble. Then one day she made a friend. She made a friend in another little girl who was unhappy. That little girl looked at her and asked her what she was doing. “Why are you making these decisions? You have other choices and this school is not good for you. You should come with me to another school. All you have to do is take a test and if you’re smart enough they let you into the school!”
The little girl, shorn of her excitement and hope through years of disappointment, tentatively approached her parents. “Can I? She asked them? Can I take this test and Transfer?” Her parents resisted. “We have been through this before!” They cried. “What makes you think you will happier this time, what makes you think this is any different?” The little girl thought and thought and thought. Finally, she went back to her parents and said, “You were right,” she said, “its not different. But I am different. I am not that little girl that wanted to be actress. I am not that little girl who will blindly follow her parent’s request. And I am not that little girl who is making bad decisions. I would like to be a girl who wants to go to school, who wants to learn and grow, I want to be a girl who can find peers who challenge her and who appreciate her. Please let me.” And so her parents threw up their hands and made the only choice they could. They let her Transfer.
That little girl grew and flourished. It was Hard and it was Fun. She made friends and she learned to enjoy learning. The Transfers were hard and some of them were mistakes, but at each turn the little girl grew and gained knowledge in some form or another. The greatest lesson she learned during those years of Transfer was that she could not learn if she was not challenged and she could not learn if she was not Happy. She could not learn if she was not being taught and if she was not focused. And she could not learn if no one believed in her. And her parents were proud.
The little girl grew. And she lived Happily Ever After.
One Upon a Time, there was a little girl who was lost. Not lost in the traditional sense that no one knew where she was, but in the sense that she did not know where she was going.
She had had a friend who had told her about a school where all they do all day is sing, and draw, and play. “All you have to do is audition! You sing for them and perform for them and if you’re good enough they let you into the school!” She exclaimed. She then proceeded to perform her monologue she was going to use for audition. The little girl had run home full of excitement. Her parents had been skeptical but could see how important this was to their little girl. They signed her up for an audition and proceeded to fulfill their promise to encourage the little girl in whatever path she chose to take. This path was Transfer.
This was the spark that lit a roaring flame of change in the life of that little girl. She spent two years in that school of performing arts. She was able to sing and act and draw and play every day. What she was not able to do was learn. They had academic classes in the school of course, but the performing arts took precedence. She was taken out of reading to practice her solo. Math was canceled for a whole week to make time to rehearse for the dance recital. Her Social Studies presentation on Rhode Island was pushed back for weeks to make time to travel and perform their Winter play.
When the time came for that little girl to go to middle school her parents decided enough was enough. They had pledged to support their little girl in whatever path she chose, but they had also sworn to protect her, to guide her, and to ensure she received a proper education. This led to another audition; this led to an exam that took hours, testing her academic capacity, and resulted in Transfer.
The next two years were lonely for that little girl. She found herself surrounded by students who had spent their whole lives together, and who didn’t have the desire to adopt a new friend into their circle. The little girl spent recess alone with her books. She studied and she wrote, and she thrived academically. She found the academic challenges that had previously been lost to her. But the little girl was unhappy. Please she begged her parents, please let me go to another school. Let me go back to the friends I knew before the first Transfer. Let me take it all back and let me start over. Eventually, her parents, seeing their little girls unhappiness, relented, and allowed her to enroll in a high school close to home, where her sister went to school, and back to the life she knew before Transfer.
Poor little girl. She would learn at this time that ‘you can’t go home again’ (Thomas Wolfe). People change and you can’t make choices based on emotion alone. The little girl didn’t think about how much she had loved the academic challenges in her middle school. She had forgotten that she had lost touch with the friends she once knew. All she thought of was starting over. This Transfer back home was not a return to the beginning but a turn further down the road. The little girl stopped trying in school. The work was too easy, she didn’t need to study, she didn’t need to try. She hung around other angry little girls and boys who got in trouble; who got her in trouble. Then one day she made a friend. She made a friend in another little girl who was unhappy. That little girl looked at her and asked her what she was doing. “Why are you making these decisions? You have other choices and this school is not good for you. You should come with me to another school. All you have to do is take a test and if you’re smart enough they let you into the school!”
The little girl, shorn of her excitement and hope through years of disappointment, tentatively approached her parents. “Can I? She asked them? Can I take this test and Transfer?” Her parents resisted. “We have been through this before!” They cried. “What makes you think you will happier this time, what makes you think this is any different?” The little girl thought and thought and thought. Finally, she went back to her parents and said, “You were right,” she said, “its not different. But I am different. I am not that little girl that wanted to be actress. I am not that little girl who will blindly follow her parent’s request. And I am not that little girl who is making bad decisions. I would like to be a girl who wants to go to school, who wants to learn and grow, I want to be a girl who can find peers who challenge her and who appreciate her. Please let me.” And so her parents threw up their hands and made the only choice they could. They let her Transfer.
That little girl grew and flourished. It was Hard and it was Fun. She made friends and she learned to enjoy learning. The Transfers were hard and some of them were mistakes, but at each turn the little girl grew and gained knowledge in some form or another. The greatest lesson she learned during those years of Transfer was that she could not learn if she was not challenged and she could not learn if she was not Happy. She could not learn if she was not being taught and if she was not focused. And she could not learn if no one believed in her. And her parents were proud.
The little girl grew. And she lived Happily Ever After.