Reflective Essay

To Illuminating

In my home country China, seventh grade represents the start of junior high. And there is usually a mandatory military training period before the start of junior high, high school, and college. As a military-style managed school, the junior high that I was enrolled in required a week-long training, and no cellphones were allowed on the trip. However, since this was for many of the students our first long separation from family, some of my classmates snuck cellphones into the compound that was to be our home for the week.

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One night, missing my family immensely, I approached one of my classmates and asked to borrow her cellphone. After making a call to them outside of our dorm, I was discovered by two teachers, who saw the phone glowing in my pocket, and immediately fell to questioning me. Why do you have this phone when you know it is against the rules? Where did you get it? I answered that it belonged to my classmate and that others had used the phone as well. When taking the phone, I was aware that I was doing something wrong and felt guilty. But in the moment my homesickness outweighed any fear of consequence. I was also young and seeing others bending the rule left me with the impression that it was not a serious offense. As it would turn out, I was very mistaken.

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The teachers called out the owner. Out of an understandable effort to divert attention away from herself, she claimed that she did not know I took the phone. The teachers were convinced that I took the phone from her without her knowledge, and they threatened to call the police. During the Closing Ceremony Performance of the following day, the head of seventh grade pulled me aside and admonished me for the previous day’s events. As punishment, she ordered me to take the place of a music stand, kneeling on stage before a packed hall, holding up music scores for two performers as they sang and played. On the next evening, the grade head continued to dole out punishment. She commanded me to stand in a stiff upright military position for three hours in the courtyard. After the trip had ended and we returned to school, some teachers and students openly accused me of being a thief. Many of my peers stopped talking to me altogether. This only intensified with time. I felt ostracized in that environment and my family appealed to the school for a leave of absence, with the intention of using this time to search for another school. The leave was granted. I left school in mid-September of 2012.

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In October of the same year and the two falls that followed, I made repeated attempts to return to formal schooling. My parents took me to various schools in Beijing to seek admittance as a transfer student, but we were turned away each time. We were never given clear reasons for rejection, but we reasonably speculated that it was either due to the severity of the Chinese education system which treats misconduct severely or policy that makes it nearly impossible for a student to re-integrate into the system once they have been out for a while. One can also imagine that the schools we approached took that unfortunate incident as an indicator of my general conduct and couldn’t risk accepting a student who might likely cause trouble. What had been a single minor incident stemming from a misunderstanding had now metastasized into a severe infraction, tainting my character.

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I have always been passionate about learning and was distraught to have this interrupted, but I resolved to continue my studies independently. Through the period of 2012-2019, I have followed the Chinese public school curriculum through taking online and offline courses, while reading a myriad of English books to improve my language skills. After discovering the possibility of attending college abroad as a homeschooled student, I also started to take test-prep courses, and sat several standardized tests including SAT and AP. In 2019, I was accepted by Franklin & Marshall College, and was finally able to become a full-time student again pursuing my academic interests.

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This incident that occurred when I was at a young age has made a significant impact on my educational experience, and led to my interests in the field of education. When I look back now, I think of how my teachers could have handled the situation differently, and how much of a positive impact that would have had on my life. However, thanks to the support of my family and friends, the chance given to me by Franklin & Marshall College, and the incredible teachers and mentors who have inspired and lighted my path both within and without formal schooling system, I was able to immerse myself in the academic environment that I have been longing for years again—all the way to Penn GSE, and to the ECS program. Through my unique education experience, I have also discovered my calling: To become an educator who can contribute towards building positive and caring student-teacher relationships, viewing students through an anthropologist’s perspective and child perspective, and helping teachers cultivate students in mind, heart, and hand.