NEWS FEED

Petri–Message from CAPA

Written by Donovan Petri

Well, guys the school year has started, now begins the chaos, or at least that’s what I thought. I always thought that school was this chaotic place where kids run around in the halls and talk during class and it’s all just pure anarchy. But going and experiencing a different school has opened my eyes what a school is supposed to be, NOW I UNDERSTAND WHAT TEACHERS MEANT WHEN THEY DICIPLINED US!

 You guys hear when teachers tell us to “quiet down” so he/she can teach? Well, I used to think that was just teachers yelling for the sake of yelling but now I understand what they meant. The learning environment here is amazing, mainly due to the kids being quiet during class (this doesn’t mean we don’t all talk and goof off, but the kids here know when to listen and when to talk [not loud but not quiet either]). The learning environment is also due in part to the literal environment of the school, there are a lot fewer rules about in-between classes and before school starts.

At Obama you go to your next class when the bell rings and before school you’re in the cafeteria, while here the school is littered with random alcoves of chairs and tables and computers and small trees and all in all, the building is just much more inviting.

My final thing to say about it is the classes. We only have four classes here, all of them are 80 minutes long and then followed by a major, which is 160 minutes long.

But since you get used to it quickly it feels like the day is shorter, and majors always fly by because it’s ALWAYS some sort of activity. 

This does not mean I don’t have bad things to say about CAPA, though. For one it’s very segregated, a kid in art can’t be in band, or a kid in theater can’t sing in choir. There is one all school musical, but as we all know it’s, well…..

 I also miss the tightly knit community of Obama; at Obama you knew all the teachers for every grade and there weren’t a lot of kids so you knew a lot of them too. But here at CAPA, I’m lucky if my friends have even HEARD of my math teacher! So going to a school with 500 hundred kids vs. a school with 2000 kids is definitely a big difference. Navigating the halls is also a big deal, and since the school is vertical you are constantly going up 4 floors then down 7 floors then up 2 floors and so on and so on. Plus you’re doing this while 2000 other kids are trying to get around, so the stairs are always CROWDED! 

So the change from Obama to CAPA was certainly a hard one, but it wasn’t as awkward as I thought it would be. To be honest I kind of like the chill and easy going environment over here, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss Obama. I still miss journalism class, I still miss Mr. Denlinger and Mr. Dumbroski respectively, and most of all I miss going to a teacher’s room during lunch to escape the craziness of the cafeteria (even though the lunch room here is so beautiful that you no longer want to skip it). No matter how used to going here I become, I will never be able to walk out of those doors without that feeling of fear in stomach when I see my friends standing across the street, waving.