Robert E. Lamberton Elementary School

  • Population: around 600 students
  • Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Type: Public School
  • Grades: K-8th Grade
  • Teacher to student ratio: 1-17
  • School-day duration: 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM
  • Interesting fact: After it was first founded in 1949, Lamberton also housed a high school until 2013




The Lamberton experience was more traumatic because it is when I first realized how much the environment in which I am affects my desire and ability to learn. I remember walking down the halls of the school for the time and realizing how dark the halls were. I could not believe that Lamberton was the school I would be attending that year. I vividly remember coming home with tears streaming down my face at the end of my first school day there. From there, I remember begging my mother to let me stay home every single day. I would go to school 2 out 5 days in the week.
I was also part of ESL and teacher’s classroom located in the little school house. The difference between the middle school and the little school house was night and day. The other two students and I would always ask the ESL teacher to let us stay with her. Thus, causing us to miss a lot of instructional time. Around November, I switched school to connections academy—which we will explored more in the next section of the portfolio. However, in January, the district sent a truancy court citation. After the court day, I was forced to return back to Lamberton with my tails between my legs. This time I could not skip any classes as it would result in being retained back in seventh grade, one of my biggest fears in life.
The rest of the year I spent in my ESL teacher’s classroom and attending few classes. I was able to see myself in my math class and then in a poetry unit in my English class. I did well in that unit and that is when I gained my confidence as student again. I was surprised to find out I could be considered smart again. I ended up being promoted to 8th grade. The next school year I was ready for a fresh start at Lamberton. I was not let the school environment distract me from my goals and I had already ruin 7th grade—the grade that determine what high school I would go to. I left Lamberton 3 weeks into the school year and transferred to Mastery Charter.
From Lamberton, I was able to discover myself as a learner. I was able to see that one’s educational environment does have an effect on one’s learning and that my concerns are indeed valid. This semester through the various experience I was able to visit my own time as a student and reflect on what I would had done differently knowing what I know now. 

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