Ujan Bajracharya

10/15/2023

Freshman Composition

First experience with the DOE of NYC

7 years and 11 months ago, I came to the US. One month later, I started school again, now in a new country with new people of different backgrounds and ethnicities. There I was in a new class,  assigned a spot with someone who looked similar to me, which was because we both looked South Asian. We ended up speaking the same language even though we were from different neighboring countries, and he guided me throughout the few days for me to assimilate into the new environment, and how differently the education system worked in the US compared to back home. He still is one of my closest friends after 7 years of knowing each other.

I immediately loved the school system here because of how many activities there were to do, such as activities in phys ed, where we did different things every day and how fun it was, how colorful it was, and how passionate the teachers were in my new class, which was full of colorful posters in English, I just enjoyed this room more, because I found it easier to read and write in English than my own language back home. The classes here felt more inviting and comfortable when compared to back home because I could easily read and understand words, unlike in my own language where it took me a long time to read a single sentence.But one thing that I did miss was my friends, and making friends here in this new place was something that I had not thought about, I had no idea how to start making friends with people who were very different than me in everything from looks to the way they talked to how their cultures were like seeing how their parents looked and dressed when they came to pick their children up, everything looked so different and diverse from what I was used to back in my country. After a few weeks, the excitement and newness of everything stopped.

The mirage was over.  I began to see things differently from before, everything that I saw as good was seen differently, including the ESL class I used to have in the hallways right outside of my class with the students learning English. The hallway was basically a tunnel of paint, with so many layers of paint from your feet to the ceiling all you could see was paint and some posters on the wall, all the bumps of the dried paint, the smell of food from the cafeteria nearby, and all the smell of paint that could make you feel sick and nauseous. While I and a few more kids were selected to be outside with the ESL teacher being taught separately in a different way than the normal English-speaking students, it was something I saw as a positive thing, but I started to realize the teachers weren’t as passionate as I had thought they were, and they were just here for their job to do work. I found this out when they were just teaching us things without even knowing if we understood even though we were considered to be ESL and required more attention. Then the teachers started asking us question after question without giving us time to respond expecting nothing back because again we were considered ESL students and didn’t know English well enough to respond. This felt like my voice wasn’t heard and I felt belittled because she just expected me to not know anything. Since the teacher never gave us an opportunity to speak, they didn’t know I could speak English, which was taught to me in school in my home country, and that it was my 3rd language that I could understand and speak, although English wasn’t something I was confident in.

There was one time that my ESL teacher gave us some time to answer a question which was about the Largest River in South America. I knew this just from the knowledge and curiosity I used to have about learning geography back then, and I said the Amazon River. The face when she found out that I understood everything that she had been talking about: Her face shriveled up, and she was surprised when she found out that I had been understanding everything that she had been talking about, then she asked me a few more questions which I could easily answer.

After this incident, I was still kept in the ESL program but I was given more opportunities to participate in classes and I started getting normal homework as other students did, which took me a while to get used to since I used to be in a boarding school back in my country so we did everything in school because of how long the hours were and barely had any homework. This shaped my experience moving forward because I’ve experienced this happening to myself. I kind of went into other schools with a set expectation of what to expect and for me to stand up for myself as well. It also gave me an impression of the US to be more like this where people just assume rather than get to know someone, but this is something that has been changing since I’ve made friends and they know me for who I am and don’t assume who or what I am just based on my appearance and make an effort to know me. This experience also changed me because it made me more mature because I’ve experienced something like this happening to me so I know not to assume things about other people just based on their appearance. 

Revision Summary

CHANGES I MADE AND WHY:

1.    List each revision, where the idea came from (peer review, instructor, self, or other), and WHY you made that revision.

• Improving grammar, making the long sentences shorter and easier to read. (Professor)
• Adding words in certain places where it made sense and made the essay better to read. (Professor)
• Adding more to my conclusion (Peer review, Professor)

I FEEDBACK REJECTED AND WHY:

1.    List each revision, where the idea came from (peer review, instructor, self, or other), and WHY you decided NOT to make that revision.

There weren’t many ideas that I rejected, because most of the ideas were good ideas that fit well with my essay. 

The only thing that I did reject was during peer review I was suggested to put some words or dialogues of me speaking in my language, but that’s something that even I don’t know how to type out, and I’m not sure if that would fit in with my essay about the education system that I was introduced to when I first entered the education system here in the United States.