Tom Garrity ’16 – My first day at Wendell Phillips Academy High School was extremely hectic, especially relating to confusion about my placement in the early morning. My counselor, Ms. Kashual was giving an AP biology exam and was running around trying to find me a teacher willing to let me sit in on their class. After meeting my first teacher, Mrs. McMurray the atmosphere in the classroom was extremely different than my personal experience of attending a high school in a rural farm community. The energy in the classroom was at levels I had never experienced before. Mrs. McMurray, handled it in a very professional manner, and demonstrated her unique relationships with each of the students. Always maintaining respect from her students while keeping friendly conversations. Which was a big topic in multiple articles we read for EDU 330. Shortly after, I moved to Ms. Beans history class but not before I was in the hallway during passing period.
We read multiple articles in class about the security and other areas that were different than what we had experienced, but being in the hallway during passing period was something that had to be experienced in person. Almost the exact moment that I turned while I was walking out of the door of Mrs. McMurray’s classroom, I looked to my left and thought a fight was happening. Five seconds later, the two students who I thought were throwing down, began laughing and joking. After that surprising incident, it was almost impossible to walk in a straight line to my next destination. Students were running after each other, and bumping into everyone, that was the first real sense of cultural shock that occurred, with that kind of behavior being the norm of the school.
My advice to future students getting ready to experience an inner-city school setting for the first time is to be ready to go with the flow. The pace at the high school I was in was extremely fast, and you cant get caught up in making sure everything will go as planned, cause it won’t. However, getting ready to go into the second day of being in the school, I have a new level of confidence and also a new level of excitement.
