Identity Summit

Today, I went to the identity summit which was being held at Chapel Hill High School. What happens at the identity summit is you watch presentations all day, but stick with me, it wasn't boring! You have a schedule. Starting in November, groups of 4-6 have to make a presentation about a social injustice in our world, and sometimes that can be very interesting! If your presentation is good enough, then you get to present! My group was researching how social media impacts people from all over the world, and we got to present! It turned into a major catasprophe because we didn't have a computer, but we had interactive activities, so we did that with our audience instead of just ackwardly standing there. No one participated in the interactive activities! Well some people did, but no one was into it!

So our last event was the closing event where people would just come up in front of everyone and recite a poem or say an opinion. That kind of scares me. I never had the nerve to go up there, and then I came home today and said, "what the heck I will just write it on my blog!" So here's what I wanted to say:

"So Irwin told us that school sucks, right? Well, the reason school sucks is because we all take it for granted. We go to school everyday. We wake up at about 7 am, go to school, stay at school, and go home from school. After a while, this just becomes quite a boring schedule, and then we start taking it for granted, and then we start hating it. 

"Throughout my childhood, I had the opportunity to live in three different countries: Spain, England, and Panama.  I have seen how different their cultures are, how different the people are, and  just how different the educational systems are. In England, I learned how to write the English way, which I unfortunately had to let go of when I moved to Spain, but to make up for that, I learned to speak Spanish fluently. The Spanish helped me once I moved to Panama. Panama was a whole different country, different culture, different people, and definetely a different educational system. From 4th to 7th grade, I got a terrible education. We had too many days off. Sometimes, my parents would just get an email in the morning, that read, oh the water isn't working or the air conditioning isn't working or the government decided to call this a day off! We got too many days off. School was easy. Too easy. However, I won a ton of awards, but that didn't really mean anything, except that I was one of the only students in the school that was giving it their best. 

"The summer I moved to Chapel Hill, I was expecting school to be just as easy. I was wrong. I sometimes grow envious of how some of you guys have lived here your whole life, and I have only lived here for one year. I have been asleep my whole life, that is until I came to Chapel hill. 

I remember in fourth grade, my family and I went on a trip to visit the Kuna Yala tribe. There would be children that would stare at me as I walked in the streets of their village and say in Spanish, "The blond must go to school! How lucky!" These children may never have the opportunity to go to a school, and probably the next generation after that. 

"The girls in the video, look at how much they wanted an education! The girl from Nepal said, "I love school." She never took it for granted!

So I want you to stop and think about the great position you're in. You guys are ready to go off to a great college, and ready to go off and chase your dreams, whatever those dreams may be! So stop taking school for granted! School does NOT suck!"