My life map

1. Elementary

1.1. Kindergarten to grade 1 I was in my first school. I don't remember too much from these grades except that I began my love for "Amelia Badilia" books. In grade 1, I remember struggling with bigger words on spelling tests and I had a very nice teacher.

1.2. In grade 2 to 3, I moved to another school because we moved across the city. In grade two, I remember struggling with what nouns and vowels were. In grade 3, learning how to hand write and do times tables at the same time was a lot for me to handle. The friends that i made, all went home at lunch, so I was left alone and was very shy to ask if I could sit at a table with people. These students took advantage of this and would make me pay them my toonie given to me every day for milk, to sit with them. I ended up eating alone outside because of this.

1.3. From grade 4 to 6 is the most vivid memory for me. We had moved to a brand new house and community this year. Grade 4 was my worst year. My teacher was quite mean to me and would not help me which made me scared to ask for anything. This was the beginning of my math struggles. My grades really dropped this year. Grade 5 was the complete opposite where I had the nicest teacher I had ever had so far and would always make the effort to help me when I did not understand something. This was the year I really started to struggle with my reading comprehension. I was a strong reader but I had such difficulty remembering what I had just read when it came to the questions. Not much stands out to me in grade 6, except for always getting low marks on my tests.

2. highschool

2.1. Come grade 10 math, some areas were harder to understand than others. The teacher would tell us to work with a neighbor if we needed help, which didn't really help me overall because I ended up feeling like I wanted to give up on math and my friends would just let me copy. Once I knew I didn't have to take math in grade 11 or 12, I only put enough effort in to pass grade 10 math. I remember my reading comprehension skills were a lot stronger in high school. I still struggled with exams, and got really bad test anxiety.

2.2. In grade 11 when we needed to branch off in science to one of the core subjects, I chose biology because it seemed the most interesting and chemistry and physics had a lot to do with math so I stayed away from them. I ended up failing biology by 2% under the passing grade because I still struggled with my memory when it came to the exams. I always did well on the work itself though.

2.3. Grade 12 I remember struggling with social. I found it most ly to be boring and did not care about what I was learning. I did well in science this year, and english was by best subject again, and no math! I ended up graduating with 10 credits over the amount that was needed and felt this was my best year academically.

3. Life after High school

3.1. I did not have a plan after high school in place for what I wanted to do with my life. I went from wanting to be a dental hygienist to an interior designer to working with people with disabilities. I decided to upgrade my english to 30-1 because I needed this for the majority of courses I thought about taking. I ended up working for a few years and then planned on going back to school to take disability studies. I saw a job posting to work with these people and thought I would try and apply first. I ended up getting the job so I didn't go back to school. I loved this field but knew I wanted to work with children. I then got pregnant and had my son. After having him my love for children grew and I really knew I wanted to be working with them and also be able to spend more time with my son. Working in a school would give me that opportunity.

4. Junior High

4.1. In grade 7, math got a lot harder, and I was paired up sometimes with a student in the class who was very smart and would work with me. The one on one support really did make a difference for me but I was not able to work with him all the time which really didn't help me get ahead.

4.2. In grade 8, I still struggled in math and it seemed almost every subject except for language arts, (aside from the reading comprehension) was difficult for me in some way. I never did well on tests either. This was the first year I remember being able to have someone do reading comprehension tests with a group of us which really did help me to remember what I had just read when it was read to me. Grade 9, was just another year of the same struggles but I remember liking more of my teachers.

5. Today

5.1. Once I was financially okay, and ready to go back to school, I explored different courses through different schools here in Calgary and found this certificate. Here I am today and almost finished this program!