Yağmur Çetin

Yağmur Çetin

I am an eighth grade student. I finished those long eight years of my education in my school in Ağullu. The name of my school is Şehit Öğretmen Ali Boşgelmez İlköğretim Okulu. I love my school, it is the place I enjoyed going, where sometimes I had difficulties, where I lived my first years.
My school’s financial means are very limited. In winter we can’t use the laboratory because it is cold. Our library isn’t big and many of the kids still have not developed good reading habits. A canteen opened only this year, for seven years we didn’t have one. We lack maps for social sciences study and our teachers try to teach with whatever means they have. I wish we could also use the computer lab and do more of what we’d like to do, like watching films. I wish we had some tools, that would both be fun and educational, in the school for us to pass the time. I think these are the things that are missing in our school.

If I ask whether I got a good education during these eight years, I may say that with the facilities the State provides, we are about the same level as the other schools. But they may have other activities that we don’t, because of our financial limitations. Still competitions are organised often in our school. It could be about who reads the most books or chess tournaments. The students who win are given awards during ceremonies.

There were things that I enjoyed at school. For example, I enjoy chatting and sharing things with my friends during lunch break. Sometimes, although we are the seniors, we like to laugh and have fun like the small kids. And we enjoy doing it a lot. We are like baby blue birds ornating (decorating) the school yard because of the blue colour of our school uniforms. Sometimes our teachers join us also and I really like it when they do that.

On Tuesdays a guidance counsellor comes to the school and all day listens to our problems, this is good. But if he or she stayed at the school every day, then we could go and talk about our problems any time. Actually I think I am lucky because our teachers listen to us when we have problems and try to help us solve them.

Of course, there are also irresponsible students who don’t obey school discipline. Normally they get warned, but if they don’t understand or obey the warnings they are given punishments such as reading a book or to make a summary of the next subject that we will study. But the problem is that, it isn’t checked if they did or didn’t do the punishment and then the student carries on doing what they did.

Also even if a student has low grades or fails, they pass to the next level. Although this may please the student, in my opinion, it may cause the next generation to become irresponsible and is what I disapprove of most. This is unfair to studious students.

Some teachers want students to solve their problems by themselves. In a way they are right, that can help the students stand right on their feet in their future life. Nevertheless, the problems they cannot solve, no matter how hard they try, could be one between friends or something outside the school. Because their teacher says, solve your problem by yourself, students don’t dare to to go their teacher and the problem becomes a bigger psychological issue for them. This also causes a lack of trust for the teachers.

This is my last year and these issues could be the accumulation of eight years, but now I have a bigger issue: to go to a good high school to have a good career. And this reminds me of my Turkish teacher Mr. Burham Şimşek whom I like very much. He keeps saying, a good high school is the key to a good university. I like it very much. My art teacher Ms. Canan Çakmak, was a big influence in my choice of career. Every time I think of a career choice, I lean for the arts and that makes me think of my art teacher Ms Canan. Although I like all my teachers, she is special to me. I think of her as a role model, not just in school but in real life also and she is one of the favourites for many students. I think that my social sciences teacher is very successful also. She is a good teacher and she speaks English as well and she supported me in my English studies and helped me to become successful.

I am sad because this is my last year and that I will leave my school. I will be apart not just from my school but my friends also. Still I am very happy about one thing, good or bad I took a lot from this school.
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