A Day At School

My name is Raeann, I am visually impaired. I attended the Indiana School for the Blind, a day and residential school, for blind and visually impaired children, ages three to nineteen years old, in Indianapolis, Indiana.

My school was a 5 day boarding school, where the whole school closed on the weekends and everyone went home. My family lived an hour and a half from the school. My best friends Jessica and Lisa, lived at the other end of the state, had to ride the bus for five hours twice a week, just to attend school.

A Day At School
The days at school were very busy, from the time that I woke up, to the time that I went to bed, I was constantly on the move, in the classroom and in the dorm at night. My alarm clock would wake me up at 6:00 a.m. I would get out of bed, put on the clothes that I had laid out the night before on my bench, brush my hair then make my bed. By 6:30, I am downstairs in the living room, watching some television, waiting for the dorm parent to say that it is time to leave for breakfast. At 6:45, she tells us that it is time to leave for the dining room. We all walk to breakfast together. The dinning room is at the other end of the school, across the hall from the elementary school dorms. When we arrive at the dinning room, we stand around in the hall waiting for them to let us in to eat breakfast. At 7:00, they let us in the dining room, my dorm walks to our assigned dorm table. For breakfast there is a variety of cereals to choose from, juice, toast, bacon or sausage depending on what the menu said. When you were finished eating, you had to sit at the table until everyone was through with their food. When everyone was through eating, the dorm parent said it was time to leave the dining room. We all walked back to the dorm together. By 7:30, we were back in the dorm getting ready for school. I went to my bedroom to get my tooth brush and tooth paste. When I got to the bathroom, I talked to my friends while I waited in line for an open sink to brush my teeth. After I brushed my teeth I went back to my bedroom to get my books for school. Then I went downstairs to watch some television in the living room, until the dorm parent dismissed us to school for the day.

At 7:55 we leave for school, school starts at 8:00, as we leave the dorm, I say good bye to my dorm parent and friends. At my school you only have five minutes between classes, you practically have to sprint to the next class. The first 20 minutes of the day is spent in homeroom. My homeroom is at the other end of the school, in the elementary school. Mrs. Romono was my homeroom teacher. She monitors the progress in our other classes and helps us if we did not understand an assignment. Mr. Becker was my Social Studies teacher, his classroom was on the third floor in the high school. In Social Studies we learned about all the states and world geography. Mrs. Vorice was my Gym teacher, the gym was at the other end of the school. My class rotated between four weeks of gym and four weeks of Health class. In Gym we learned volley ball, roller skating as a group, interpretive dance, we ran track and field down by the cub scout house and gymnastics. In Health we learned about the circulatory system and the brain. Mrs. Romono was also my Science teacher. In class we studied weights, grams, kilograms and liters. We also studied measurements, millimeters, centimeters and yards. Mrs. Hughes was my Math teacher, the Math classroom was right above the Science classroom, in the elementary school. Math was my hardest subject, all the numbers got turned around in my head, I was in the seventh grade, with the Math skills of a fifth grader.

Lunch was at 11:00, I was glad, that lunch was after Math, so that I got a break after a hard class. You were allowed to sit wherever you wanted to during lunch, my friends and I sat at a table towards the front of the dining room. As we ate our lunch, we would make plans for after school and talk about our morning classes. The food at school was good usually. The school made great lasagna, pizza and turkey sandwiches. After lunch, the teachers told us we could go talk to our friends in the boys quad courtyard. This was really boring, just standing around talking with nothing else to do for fun.

The bell rang, telling us that it was time to go back to school. English was the first class after lunch. The English classroom was right next to my Math classroom, in the elementary school. Mrs. Harper was the English teacher, we read and did reports on the Mark Twain books, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. In the fifth grade you are given the choice to study either piano or band. The piano room was at the other end of the school, on the second floor above the gym. Mrs. Francisco was the piano teacher. I played Jingle Bells at the Christmas concert and Swan Lake at the spring concert. The choir room was above the piano room on the third floor. Mrs. Olmsted was the music teacher, we spent most of the year learning songs to sing at the Christmas, Spring and graduation concerts. I am not a very good singer, I am tone deaf. The last bell of the school day rang at 3:15, I said bye to the teacher, then returned to my dorm.

When I returned to my dorm, I checked in with the dorm parent, went upstairs to my bedroom to put away my school books. I went back downstairs to tell my dorm parent that I was leaving for practice. In the fall, I had track practice, in the winter, I had cheer leading practice after school. The gym was right down the hall from my dorm, I went to the gym for track practice. At the gym attendance was taken then we paired up to jog down to the track and field area. I was a very slow runner, I usually fell behind the other runners and went at my own pace. When we arrived at the track, the team manager lead us in warm up stretches then the entire team ran a mile. When you were through running the mile, the coaches divided us up in to groups to work on our individual events. My events were the 440 race, the 60 yard dash and the standing long jump. The 440, is where you have to run up the straight track six times in a row. The 60 yard dash, is where you sprint down the straight track, to the finish line. The standing long jump, is when you jump into a pile of sand, the judges measure how far you have jumped. At the end of practice the team managers lead us in cool down stretches, then we jog up the hill to dinner. Dinner is at 5:00 The track team walks to our team table to eat dinner together. When I was finished eating, I went back to my dorm table, to wait for my dorm, to leave the dinning room.

We all walked back to the dorm together. If the whether was nice, the dorm parent would let us walk outside, to go back to the dorm. By 5:30, we were back in the dorm getting ready for study hall. I went to my bedroom to get my tooth brush and tooth paste. When I got to the bathroom, I talked to my friends while I waited in line for an open sink to brush my teeth. After I brushed my teeth, I went down stairs to check the list to see what my dorm job was for the week. A dorm job is a house keeping type job that you do every night for a week. Dorm jobs include: emptying the bathroom and kitchen trash, wiping down the study area tables, vacuuming the living room carpet, sweeping and moping the kitchen floor.

After my dorm job was completed, I went back to my bedroom, to get my school books for study hall. Study hall was for an hour and started at 6:00. If you made the A or B honor roll, you were awarded the privilege of studying independently, upstairs in your bedroom, otherwise you had to study in the downstairs study area. If you had a D or F on your report card, you went to another dorm for a two hour study hall, the teachers there helped you get caught up on your school work. When you finished your homework you went to watch the news in the living room for the rest of the hour.

After study hall was over, I went upstairs, to take my school books back to my bedroom. Recreation time starts at 7:00, when I came back downstairs it was time to leave for recreation time. I told my dorm parent which activity I would be doing that evening, then left the dorm. The recreation staff put out a list that listed what activities we would be doing each evening after study hall. Some of the activities we participated in were: swim in the school pool, bowl in the school bowling alley, roller skate in the school roller rink, play board games, win candy if you won the game, watch a movie in the auditorium and some days we chose our own activity in the gym. On Monday and Wednesday evenings, you could go to the student center, to buy candy, play pool or video games and listen to music on the juke box.

At 9:00, I had to be back at the dorm, to start getting ready for bed. I checked in with my dorm parent, went to my bedroom to get undressed and take my shampoo and towel to the bathroom. When I went to the bathroom, I talked to my friends while I waited in line for an open shower. After my shower, I went back to my bedroom to get dressed, put away my shampoo and towel. As my roommate was coming back from the shower, I grabbed a book from my closet, to read until lights out. As I was reading, I listened to my roommate getting ready for bed. At 9:30 pm, it was time to turn the bedroom light off. I said good night to my roommate, closed my eyes and went to sleep. As I went to sleep, I felt comforted by the routine of school life.