My high school experience was pretty great when I look back on it. I went to a great school where I learned a lot and I met amazing people I’m still close with. However, it was a new school so it took a lot of hard work from both the administration and us, the students, to get the school to where it is now. Going back I felt very nostalgic; even though I’ve only been out of high school for a little over five months. It felt like going back to a childhood home where you made so many memories.
I went to what could be described as a boarding school. I spent five days there and only two at my actual house, so you can see why I felt like I was going back to an old house. I felt as if nothing had changed because it looks exactly the same, but it’s so different from when I attended. Sure, it’s still a place where people go to learn and its purpose is still preparing high schoolers for college, but it’s feel is completely different.
During my three years in that school we had a lot of problems with the structure. Since the school is located in an old naval base in Ceiba, there were always problems with the water and electricity. There were a lot of times where we had to leave because the power would go out or because there was no clean water and we couldn’t stay. After Maria, my school didn’t have electricity or water for eleven months. Even after they claimed that a hundred percent of Puerto Rico had been restored. Nobody really cared about the school, except us. That’s why we started to make noise and get the attention of people, we considered, could help us.It took a lot of effort and a lot of ignored phone calls from the administration to get the school back to normal for the students left after my class and I graduated.
Now, the school won’t have any other problems with the water because it was given twenty four hours to fix their black watersー and they did. They also started a project where parents give money to the school so they can buy diesel for the power generator in case the electricity is out. Those seem like pretty good changes in my opinion because it keeps the student from missing class due to lack of resources. Something that would have been very efficient when I went there.
Another thing that changed were the teachers. We had the same teachers the three years I attended. Sure, they changed maybe two or three throughout, but that was it. This year I went back hoping to see some familiar faces and I found a complete new team. The administration only had three familiar faces and the teachers I had grown to know and loveーsometimesー were gone. Only a few teachers I knew were left. I hope the new ones are as good as the ones I had the privilege to have.
Something that didn’t really change, except for me, is the stress levels. Before, when I entered it was just so stressful and I was drained all the time because of the demands of the school. When I went back it was just a feeling of peace and something like gratefulness to the school for preparing me for my life now and making it seem not so bad. Regardless, you can still see the stress in the students when they walk around. It’s a very demanding school. You have to maintain a certain GPA or they expell you, classes are all AP so, in consequence, the AP tests are mandatory.Classes are an hour and forty minutes, and you have to take two maths and two sciences per semester. That’s why when you enter you feel like you’ve just become part of the zombie apocalypse. Students still walk around laptop strapped to their hand doing work they couldn’t finish the night before.
They have a time they have to be out of their “villas” to go to class and they can’t go back inside until a determined time. Everything was regulated before. Even until what time you had to take a shower and how many times you could do laundry and until what time you could be out of your own room. Now I was told by some of the students it’s a little more relaxed. They still have a determined time to leave and be back to the villa, but the time they spend outside their rooms wasn’t regulated. Neither was the was time to wash your clothes or the time lights have to go out. Also, before you weren’t supposed to use the phone (from the school, because there is no signal for cell phones in a naval base) unless it was an emergency and they determined what was considered an emergency. Now, you can call whenever, but still within reason.
In Origin of the Boarding School: Assimilation Versus Extermination it reads “Students talked about their loneliness , about being away from their families. Some would try to run away, only to be caught and brought back”. The first time I read it I felt so detached from it because I had a very different idea of what my high school experience was actually like, but going back there I realized how true this specific quote is to my high school. The fact that I wasn’t able to call my family whenever I pleased made it a little more difficult than it already was, and I know it is for the students still attending. When you have to isolate yourself from a lot of people a lot of the times to get stuff done it becomes this weird kind of loneliness that I don’t think you can get unless you’re part of the boarding school community.
I loved my high school regardless of anything because I learned and it prepared me for a lot of things. That’s why I didn’t really want to accept that some measures were a little extreme. Even some I didn’t consider to be.
