My Elementary School

(Sorry this is late, I’m sick! Finally forced enough energy out of myself to sit up and type this! Sorry if it doesn't make any sense at all... :/)

                I grew up in a small college town, which for the most part is an extremely affluent and sophisticated society. Although Columbia, Missouri has several wealthy neighborhoods, the majority of its population seems to be upper middle class. The elementary school that I went to was supposedly at the top of its game as far as public schools in the area went. The only school we would hear about that the kids were “so much smarter” at was Columbia Independent School.

                Mill Creek Elementary School was by far my favorite school of all that I had attended. In general, the school would always promote an idea that every individual matters and we must strive to achieve our full potential.  Starting from kindergarten, we were always working on little projects hands on projects either to learn the basics or to express something that we learned from a story we recently read in class. We would always be encouraged to make the projects our own and would always get the chance to share our creation with the class or another “partner” once we were done. We were often encouraged to be immersed within what we were learning. We had a full day in fifth grade where we were not allowed to use anything that the pioneers didn’t have on their trip across the west in honor of learning about the Organ Trail.

                In Mill Creek, we were always encouraged to work as a big group, as a community, but also to let our individuality show and share it. It was always a creative environment and would seek to engage us in learning as much as possible. I remember that our kindergarten class raised a few caterpillars and released them once they turned into butterflies. This was the general mentalitly of the school, to keep the children interested and keep their world creative. Our writing assignments (up until about third grade) were always left open ended and allowed us to write about pretty much anything we wanted in whatever way we wanted.

 Although the classes were very open and encouraging, we were rarely pushed as far as learning went. We never delved into anything as deeply as the “Executive Elite School” according to Anyon, but we were always encouraged individually as students if we took the initiative to do something a little bit harder or more challenging than what was assigned to the class. In this way, I was quite often picking harder books to read, more complex explanations for things during social studies, science, and reading. I felt that the environment was always flexible as Anyon describes and we were always kept engaged as much as possible. We would go walk around the school grounds collecting things for a science class or would bring things from home to share with others. There was always flexibility between the teachers and we never felt completely rushed. This would occasionally allow for times when the classes would “be too noisy”. The teachers would then resort to the more strict and almost judgmental ways seen in the Middle Class Schools in Anyon’s research. At this point, the classrooms would generally lose their sense of learning and creativeness which Mill Creek was based upon.

http://service.columbia.k12.mo.us/millcreek/  also, thought it was interesting that I still almost have this memorized… http://www.columbia.k12.mo.us/mce/pledgepage.htm