The Education Experience, of Michael LaCroix

1st Grade

My first grade teacher was Mrs. Grassfield.

I remember most how nice she was, and that she played the Unukalhai all the time in class. She was very patient with all of the students, and really cared about her position, and understood the care she should take for her students.

Her patients with the students in turn led to us feeling comfortable asking her questions, this asking questions results in us learning more and therefore becoming better students.

Overall my first grade experience is remember as something extremely positive in my life. I believe this is because of my teacher Mrs. Grassfield. She had a very progressive outlook on education, she aloud us to be ourselves, and also used music to help educate us. She had a very student centered teaching philosophy and always kept in mind that every student was different and sometimes she had to adjust her teaching style to accommodate for those students.

I attended Johnson Elementary In Southlake, Texas.

Johnson Elementary consisted of 4 grades, 1st through 4th and had around 25 kids per class. Most of the students came from middle or upper class families whose parents picked them off and dropped them off everyday. The school had excellent technology that was used for teaching math science and critical thinking skills.

We had studied all the usual subjects, like math, science, history, reading and writing of course, but we also went to the computer lab twice a week where we would play these educational games. Looking back on it, it was pretty progressive cause they were using these computer games to teach us math, science, and critical thinking skills, in turn we as students enjoyed getting to play games so everyone was a winner. We also went to P.E. twice one week, and then three times the next, I remember being very active all day and always coming inside sweaty. We must have stunk to all the teachers!

Our School lunches weren't very good from what I remember. The lunch ladies were really nice though. The school would try to pass off this really terrible pizza as "Pizza Hut" pizza, and I even told the lunch lady that I was going to sue them for false advertisement. I pretty much brought my lunch 1st through 4th grade almost every day. I lived right behind the school so even if I forgot it I could just walk home and get it.

Southlake was a suburb located in between Dallas and Fort Worth. It was made up of all groups of people, from Hispanics, African Americans, Asians, and Caucasians. But most of these families were of middle and upper class. The population was made up of Texas Rangers Baseball players, CEO's of multinational companies, the GM of the Veranda club, or better yet, your teacher! So over all Southlake was a nice place to live and grow up as a student, the schools were well funded, and the taxes made sure of it.

2nd Grade

My 2nd grade teacher was Mrs. Allison

She was a very essentialist teacher, it was much different then 1st grade. There was a lot more emphasis on writing and I remember we did a lot of talking in front of the class to help with our ability at public speaking. I liked her but she could really strict sometimes.

I attended Johnson Elemntary in Southlake, Texas.

I didn't like second grade very much, I remember we had this one kid who was always causing trouble in our class, and I always got in fights with this one kid Ben Small, so we always had to sit out on recess.

3rd Grade

My teacher was Mrs. Carter, I remember I had take a special reading quiz cause I was having trouble jumping to the next line when reading. They had me place a bunch of different colors of transparencies and then found the color that helped me read with the most efficiency. the color for me turned out to be purple. This was an interesting experience for me cause although it showed that I was having issues with readying some of the other students thought it was cool and wanted their own transparency.

Attended Johnson Elementary in Southlake, Texas

4th Grade

This was the first year we had 2 different teachers, one for science and English, and the other for math and history. My home room teacher was Mrs. Porto. She was my favorite teacher of all my experience in elementary school. She treated us with alot of respect but also expected a lot out of us. She was a progressive teacher and inspired us to be creative with our projects that she assigned, for instance I did a report on the narwhal and to this day she still says its one of the best shes ever had. I really enjoyed this school year I made a lot of great friends and it was my last year at Johnson Elementary.

5th Grade

5th Grade was one of my least favorite years of my education. I didn't like any of my teachers, they were all very unfriendly and very impatient with us. Mrs. Carns was really condescending and Mrs. Salomoni was just plain terrifying.

It seemed like this was when social groups were really starting to develop, and guys and girls were starting to decide what was cool, and what was not cool, different social groups took place, and I didn't really know where I belonged.

Attended Carroll intermediate School

This was a very old school and needed a lot of renovation, I remember the gym teacher was really young, but she was very impatient with us, and our computer lab was so small we had to share.

6th Grade

I had Mrs. Holland Mrs. Moor in the 6th grade, and I remember Mrs. Moore was really rude and impatient. At this point in my education I realized that I wasn't very good at math, and she was my math teacher. Her rude attitude and impatient demeanor made it pretty much impossible for me to ask her any questions.

I dont remember alot of 6th grade cause it wasnt that fun for me andI didnt enjoy my time at Carroll intermediate School

Attended Carroll intermediate School

7th Grade

7th grade was the first grade when we had more then 2 teachers and it was becoming more of a high school experience. I loved 7th grade, I was on the basketball team and I had a lot of good friends. I also had good teachers and Carroll Middle School had been newly renovated. I loved my math teacher Mr. Rage and got an A in his class and my History teacher was Mr. Bell and he was awesome as well. They both really took the time to understand the teachers and had a more progressive out look. You could ever say Mr. Bell was into social reconstruction cause he really drove home the ideas of voting.

Attended Carroll Middle School

Carroll Middle School was a totally renovated school. Everything was brand new and it was much nicer then the intermediate school that I attended the previous year. It was still in Southlake so the demographic stayed pretty much the same.

8th Grade

Attended Carroll Middle School

I can remember sitting in my history clas in the 8th grade when the planes hit the twin towers on 9/11. that was pretty much all that was talked about all day anyways and no one knew what was going on.

My favorite teacher was my history teacher Mr. Dirker. He was really enthusiastic about his class and he had a lot of fun explaining the events that occurred to shape Americas History.

9th Grade

This was the first year of high school and I remember coach craft the best, he was my biology teacher and he treated us like adults. He went on to become the principal of the school late in his career.

I loved 9th grade, I made a lot of good friends, and we were combined with the other schools on the other side of town so now there were all kinds of new people to get to know which made it alot of fun.

I remember the last day of school I road the bus home with my buddy Tony, and we got to skate all over his neighborhood which was a huge sprawling area with tons of kids from school.

10th Grade

10th grade was fun, I got a car and I was actually making really good grades in school. My high school was very nice and was only 2 years old. We had all kinds of technology and it was a wonderful school.

My teaching experience was very essentialist in 10th grade, we read the classics in English and we had a lot of testing.

My favorite teacher was Mr. Heath, he was crazy but he was really intelligent and I learned a lot in his class.

11th Grade

In 11th grade I moved to Carroll Senior high but it was in the same district.

I really enjoyed the new school even though we were juniors. it was much different there, we could walk around and leave for lunch if we wanted, the passing periods were 12 minutes, it was a lot more like going to college then high school so you could say it was pretty progressive.

12th Grade

Of course 12th grade over all was amazing. I was a senior so we had alot of freedom, and the choices to take the classes we wanted. I liked my math teacher but didnt make good enough grades and had to drop out, her name was Mrs. Dubro. I also made really good friends with the art teacher Mr. Harmon throughout my high school career. He really allowed for us to get creative and even after High school was over I still kept in contact with him.