Kacian ‘Kaci’ Downer was born in Jamaica to a loving family that hoped to provide her with the best education possible. After going through pre-school and the earlier parts of elementary school, Kaci’s family was faced with a daunting reality: education in Jamaica, which was not free, proved to be subpar and not worth its cost. Due to this, her family moved to the United States hoping it would offer Kaci, aged 7 at the time, a brighter education that Jamaica was unable to provide.
When Kaci arrived for her first day of school, she felt as if she had been dropped in a completely unknown world full of short strangers. She knew how to speak English, but not as well as the other students. She sat at a desk in the back corner of the class quietly hoping not to attract unwanted attention. Throughout the year, things naturally became less tumultuous for Kaci, but she was scared about her academic ability.
There are undoubtedly many things for immigrant children to get used to when starting school in a different country. On top of the new environment, language, and culture, the overall difference in scholastic curriculum between different nations can vary greatly. With this, Kaci was confident of what she had learned in 2nd grade in Jamaica. Though, seeing as how the pilgrims on the Mayflower did not take a sunny vacation to Kingston, there were unavoidably many concepts that Kaci was unaware of. With all of the environmental changes and new information being introduced to her, Kaci had an overall weakened metacognition, which is defined by Stephen Chew as being “a student’s awareness of their level of understanding of a topic.” Essentially, the trepidation she experienced after immigrating to the U.S. made her significantly underestimate her academic knowledge. This greatly hurt Kaci’s confidence in her 3rd grade year, a sentiment that was unfairly shared by others. It was recommended by Kaci’s administrators that she should be held back to repeat her 3rd grade year because of her struggle with socially interacting with her peers and teachers. One of her teachers, however, dissented saying that after seeing what Kaci was capable of academically, she was wholly ready to pass the 3rd grade CRCT, a competency exam required for students to pass in order to go on to the next grade. This being the primary teacher that was grading Kacian’s work, the school administration accepted for her to attempt the exam. Before resigning herself to redoing the third grade entirely, Kaci would end up taking the CRCT with the encouragement of her teacher and overwhelmingly passed with flying colors.
4th grade was different for Kaci. Her ability to succeed despite having to face doubt from not only herself but also of others proved something important: that no matter any reservations others could have of her, she would persevere. At the end of elementary school, Kaci had found her confidence. Her academic self was studious and resourceful. She excelled in math but cared less for social studies as American history was still relatively obscure to her. Overall, school had become a nourishing place to learn and engage rather than being reticent. However, Kacian’s firm progress would inevitably meet a tall roadblock that every student is doomed to face: middle school.
The transition between elementary school and middle school unfortunately dampened Kaci’s expectations of herself. Kaci sadly had to deal with being bullied by other students. The issue first started in elementary school, and its continuation was encumbering. On top of dealing with bullies, her teachers did not help the situation either. She found that her teachers had taken less interest in her personally, which discouraged her from working as hard as she had before. The middle school she attended required students to wear uniforms. Kaci needed to curl up her pants because they did not properly fit her, which consistently caused her to be in trouble with one of her teachers. Through the experiences that came with overcoming this, Kaci found a wholehearted resilience within herself to once again persist despite being put down by others. By the end of middle school, she was determined to reforge the once high expectation she had of her academic self and push past the distracting relationships she had with other students that did not share her ambition.
This attitude carried on with Kaci into high school and college like a badge of honor. The foundation of her academic self was built around this: not the mere idea of what she can do, but her proven ability to overcome fierce challenges. The resilience that Kaci finds in herself is an indispensable gift that everyone wishes to have, for the darkest of storms we can find ourselves in are treacherous without it.
Works cited:
Chew, Stephen, and Samford Marketing and Communication. How to Get the Most Out of Studying: Part 1 of 5, “Beliefs That Make You Fail… Or Succeed”. Samford University, 16 Aug. 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH95h36NChI.