DESCRIPTION OF THE EXPERIENCE
Year 1981, it is September, travelling from Trabzon to Bursa. Our student, on whom the story is, based travels to a different cultural place. His friends, neighbours, life style, games, dishes, jokes are different. Everything is different. Our student travelling from Trabzon to Bursa said hello for a new life with a great disappointment.
The case happened in Bursa Cumhuriyet High School. It is one of the most popular high schools in Bursa. But, it was a beginning for education which was full of big question marks. The student was in the 1st grade in Secondary School. Among the students who made friendships with one another for 3-4 weeks, our student was a child who was introvert, shy and did not know anybody. In the class atmosphere, he felt as if all the eyes were on him. He was able to endure this situation for just one week. And he decided not to go to school. He used to leave home. But, he didn’t go to school. In the evenings, he used to come home as if he had gone to school. He thought the attendance In that school where about two thousand students went on attending the class wouldn’t be realized with his child’s mind. On the days when the student didn’t attend the classes, he used to buy a newspaper and used to spend his time reading the newspaper under the shadow of fig tree.
Because he just came to Bursa, he did not have so much interest in the places to visit. When it has passed two weeks, his letter of attendance came to his house. He certainly rejected all the questions asked by his parents. But, his lie was a kind of lie which could not be hidden for much longer time. One of the reasons for his absence was that he didn’t have the material his physical education teacher mentioned in the class and surely he hadn’t made any friendships yet. In the meantime, his teacher didn’t have any efforts in orientation.
That year was the hardest year in his education life. And at the end of the year, his ration card was so bad. There was nobody from whom he could take some help for the preparation for examinations. He failed the class. He decided to drop out of the school and to work in somewhere.
At that point, the main reasons for students’ failures can be counted as a different cultural environment, the change on his friendship environment, that he couldn’t get enough support from his friends, that the support from his family wasn’t enough, and that he could not struggle for the occasions much enough.
He didn’t go to school for a while. He worked in different places as an apprentice for a year. He decided to go on studying with the different viewpoint of one of his relatives. The speech between each other was very motivating. Even for the exams did he get help from him. His self-reliance increased. He passed to the second grade by being successful at the make-up exams of the courses he had failed.
Not going to school for a while made him motivated in going on his education. He became more mature and he had the opportunity to see the real face of life. Through all his education beginning from that year, he became one of the most successful students in the class and the school. While he was a student who couldn’t pass the class, how did he become such a successful student? In the meetings with the student, he stressed those;
1st He got the opportunity to see the real face of life by having a break in educational life.
2nd He gained self-reliance by feeling himself as an important person in his working life.
3rd In the period he worked, the busy working pace became a pressure for his little body.
4th Hıs parents’ motivation and one of his relatives’ speech for going on education again
5th His will for realizing his imagination for his future
6th His beginning in a different school by changing the school he studied
7th The encouragements of his teachers in new school
8th His new and successful communication he built in new school
The Note of the Teacher:
I have to express one more factor I find important. I learnt that the radical changes in children’s educational planning might result in failure. That when making changes becomes necessity, both the family and school should be in cooperation is crucial. As a teacher, it is necessary to build a strong empathy towards the students who just took part in the corporation and they should be guided.
