It is always so cold in the classrooms. So cold that you have to bring in a jacket from home to wear in the class rooms when the weather outdoors is around 90. My school has simply not yet been able to deal with all of the demands coming in from each classroom. It seems everyday a different teacher has a new problem with the room’s temperature during a certain point of the day. After a while of trying to find away to please everyone, the school board has simply settled for freezing everyone during the hotter seasons and during the cold seasons letting out a little heat to keep the temperature around the same throughout the year.
The school’s temperature is a usual conversational piece between students, as well as the discussion of the poor conditions of certain textbooks that happen to be on their last legs and of course the usual ‘my classroom is way more cramped than your classroom’. All of these topics are great for holding up a conversation in those very first minutes before the class has started. I even used to participate in these conversations when say, I happened to drop my textbook only to realize that the cover was still in my hands. I had never thought of how one of these conversations would sound to someone from a less fortunate background.
In the back of my mind I had always known that there were many people out there less fortunate; however, I hadn’t recognized the fact until that moment in time when I saw the supposed school room of African children displayed on a television screen. Then at that moment I realized how shallow my complaints truly were. That moment was in New York during an Islamic relief function organized to raise money for orphans in third world countries. My family and I were in New York to visit my relatives. During our stay my older cousin was playing a part in the Islamic relief fundraiser, and we all went to show our support. During the fundraiser the head of the organizational department of the Islamic relief function gave...