Liam Power Period 2 9-26-11 Narrative Essay After returning from my brief sojourn into the land of windmills

and tulips, known to the inhabitants of this foreign nation as the Netherlands, I reentered my old school, St. Joseph the Worker, which had been a moderately enjoyable, though not overly exciting experience upon leaving it. Upon entering this institution of learning, I immediately noticed several differences, such as the fact that the old principal had left, to be replaced by a woman named Mrs. Myers, or that, as usual, there was yet another computer teacher, a position that was fast becoming likable to the Defense Against the Dark Arts position of the Harry Potter series. However, what was most different was the new method of management that had been introduced, which was not the most advantageous of the possibilities. Granted, seventh grade was not absolutely horrible, but eighth grade was near pure torture, as the academics were incredibly far behind, the administration was sadly lacking in ability, excluding the secretary, and the religious tolerance was not exactly stellar. To start, the educational value had drastically declined from its previous levels, placing it far behind the rest of the district, and probably the state. One of the earliest things I noticed was that the math program was so far behind and so lacking in differentiation between various learning levels that I was forced to learn the entire algebra II textbook to get into geometry so that I could take calculus as a senior. Furthermore, the curriculum was not geared towards the public school system, but rather designed specifically for Allentown Central Catholic High School, which decided that it would have an entirely different method of learning. In one of the worst examples of the lack of progress, when students with all As were attempting to enroll in honors courses at Central, they were turned down, with the staff telling them that St. Joes had a

tendency to boost grades, though I myself cannot back this up with solid evidence, and would prefer not to. Overall, transitioning from St. Joes to Parkland took an immense amount of effort, in no small part due to the lack of pedagogic advancement. Whats more, the administration had been encountering several problems since the change of principals, with the secretary, Mrs. Karwacki, getting almost everything done and keeping the school running. Primarily, they had a tendency to waste money on various items that were in no way needed, such as a large number of flatscreen televisions, most of which were rarely used, or a fifteen to twenty thousand dollar system to connect all the televisions to one network, similar to what we have at Parkland, though in no way needed, considering a quarter of the school could easily fit into the small chapel, and that the entire school could fit in the diminutive lunchroom with an infinitesimally small amount of effort. In addition, the principal and her assistant would often fix that which was never broken, disrupting the school and making life very confusing for everyone, as shown by the horror of the Danceathon, which probably would have been near-unanimously voted as worst idea of the year if there was ever a survey. The failure of Danceathon was in part due to the basis of more money equals more stuff, causing a large amount of dissent among the school, since those children with a rich family would invariably get to a large number of activities, while those not so fortunate would be stuck sitting in the classroom all day. Most significantly, there were the metaphorical trashcans. In seventh grade, the trash cans had been spaced out at key points in the cafeteria, creating a nice system which made almost everyone happy. This was not to last, however, for upon returning to the school in eighth grade, we discovered that the trash cans had been decreased to three, and placed in a walled off section, meaning only one side could be accessed. As you can expect, this caused a huge clump at the end of lunch. While not a massive problem in itself, I consider this to

be a prime example of the problems this school faced, with a million small things adding up to make going there an incredibly painful experience, and no matter how hard I tried, nor how many visits I made to the principals office to engage in calm, collected discussion, nothing meaningful ever came out of that. This can be taken as evidence that a critical failure in the upper echelons of the hierarchy caused a massive downturn in quality. Notably, there was also the religious issue, which was an underlying theme throughout the last year. Upon entering eighth grade, when the Catholic faith decides to do Confirmation, I decided that it would be best to state up front, though in a polite manner, that I would not be undergoing Confirmation, as I was an atheist, which meant that I did not in any way believe in the Catholic, or any other, faith, as admirable as the moral and ethical ideals may be. I expected to have it accepted and then not really brought up throughout the rest of the year, so long as I did not make an issue of it. Instead, I was greeted with anger and prejudice, contravening the mission statement displayed so prominently on their newsletters. What ensued could best be described as the Christian hell. I spent so much of my time trying to escape persecution that I fell behind on my grades. In the beginning, it was the attempts to convert me, which ranged from subtle hints to nearly outright saying that I was completely wrong and should stop now or burn forever, which I could stand. But then it became more serious, with my grades being unfairly affected, in particular with the Reverence During Prayer and Liturgy grade, in which I was constantly given a horrible grade, though I was much more respectful during morning and afternoon prayer, as well as answering any question posed in religion class, be it church history or theology. This prevented me from getting first honors, until a lengthy discussion which resulted in my getting first honors, but keeping the bad grade. In addition, I would spend up to an hour and a half in the principals office, attempting to maintain a calm facade in the face of overwhelming ignorance

and obstinacy. Then, during the spring, it got worse. My father volunteered to spend a huge amount of his time coaching the track team, since the coach from last year had left now that his son had graduated. Rather than accept the blessing that had been given to them, they proceeded to search through the entire set of diocese regulations to find one little line that stated atheists may not coach or be involved in sports teams, which meant that an Aztec priest who would perform human sacrifice daily, or a Caribbean voodoo practitioner, could coach a team, but not atheists. They proceeded to eject him from the position, causing a massive decline in the quality of the coaching, as the two remaining coaches had not expected to be put into a leading role, and were overwhelmed by the volume of work required, though they dedicated a vast amount of time to trying to keep it going. Rather than represent a school which had shown only scorn to me, I decided to quietly leave the track team, and never participate in any sort of sporting event for them again. In summary, it was a very painful experience, causing a large decline in my academics. Overall, I cannot find any meaningful benefit from my time at St. Joes. beyond a very basic education, while the detriments are nigh on endless. The education al problems alone would probably have been a colossal reason to avoid going there, and was a huge problem for me upon graduating. Unfortunately, this was not all, as shown by the disappointing failure of the management to provide any sort of responsible day-to-day administration of the school, causing gargantuan holdups and mass confusion among the parents and students. Lastly, in complete opposition to their mission statement, they spent a good portion of my last year their attempting to find any small thing to jump on me for. St. Joes was in no way a good experience for me.