Life by Me: Welcome To Walker

Please excuse my broken English due to the lack of practice I get in my six years of being in Jakarta, Indonesia. I also terribly apologize for any misspellings and if I did not do you justice in these stories.

            I want to start a series about my time in America. It won’t necessarily be chronological. I haven’t even decided on a title. So, why am I writing this? Well, Evanston has always had a special place in my heart. I want to share my love to the world.  I also do not want to forget anything later on.

            Last night, I visited Walker through my dreams. It was amazing. I miss it. I want my readers to feel what it was like to walk on the floors of Walker. Here goes.

            Walker Elementary School stands in Skokie, Illinois. 3601 Church St, I still have it memorized. That is also the code for lockdown drills. If the principal stated the address correctly, it meant it was already safe. Walker is part of District 65, along with 11 other elementary schools and 3 middle schools. Most people who graduate from Walker will continue their education in Chute Middle School. My older sister did. I did not get the opportunity. Right now, a majority of my fellow Walker classmates are studying in ETHS (Evanston Township High School) as juniors. To them, everything they have is nothing big. It used to be like that for me, too. Having gone to a public school in Indonesia for the past five years have really made me think of all the privileges Indonesian students do not get.

            I also used to think Walker was just okay, not significantly special (building and facility-wise) from other schools in the district. It still seems so, just not to public school Indonesians. I have a friend here who goes to the same high school I am enrolled in, but different middle schools (private). They like to compare (if not complain) about the lack of Wi-Fi and comfort they get in our high school’s library with the way their old school was. I wanted to tell them about Walker’s library. It seemed somewhat conceited, so I refrained. But my heart was on fire just the same.

            From 1^st grade to 4^th, I went to school on a school bus. In 3^rd grade, I went alone as my sister walked to Chute. In 4^th, I went with my brother who had just entered kindergarten. The one bus driver that my family really remembers is Ms. Reed. She’s a really nice woman who gave us bus riders candy on Halloween. By 5^th grade, Mom took us to and from school. Often we would have to wait for some time after school, because Mom also had a job. I would tell my brother to hold on to my violin strap, so I didn’t have to search for him when Mom came.

            The bus drops you off right in front of the lobby. There is a flagpole there. You go in, and there is a room with a floor that is black which I think is made of rubber, so the snow from your boots will stick there as oppose to the clean floors of the inside. You can keep going straight and enter the school, or turn right into the secretary’s desk. All through my five years, it was always Ms. Adams. She would be the one to call teachers through the intercom.

            When you are in the school from there, to the left is the K-2’s classrooms, aside from Mrs. Rosenbluh’s kindergarten class which is on the right. If you keep going left, you will reach the little kids’ playground, for the K-2^nd graders. One day in first grade, someone had invited me to play. They sad “tag”, but I didn’t know what that was and thought it meant “slide”. I declined, thinking it was boring, and asked to play “tag”, but in non-English-speaker words.

Let’s go back inside. The far left, on the right side of the hallway (facing the door to the little playground), is Mrs. Maldonado’s room, the one with either red or yellow lockers, I don’t remember. One of my favorite teachers. Second grade. She was really nice and fun to be around, and I truly enjoyed every minute I spent with her. I remember coming into class all bruised up one morning, a result of playing tag with one of my sister’s friend as somebody stepped on my shoelace and I tripped on the pavement, bleeding on my elbow and knee and with a nasty graze on my cheek.

On the left side would be Mrs. Sanchez, may she rest in peace. She was my first grade teacher that passed away a couple months into first grade. I was devastated and cried very hard that day. I made her something, a writing or a drawing, I can’t remember. She used to give out Star Student Awards. The awardee would get to sit on her rolling chair for the day. Another one of my favorite teachers. Now that I think about it, all my teachers are my favorite.

Mrs. Evans, then principal, took Mom and I to my first grade classroom after dropping off my sister at her fourth grade class upstairs. Mrs. Evans asked if I wanted to hug Mom, I said no. I was still Indonesian-oriented, and didn’t enjoy hugging. That would changed by the time my five years are over (I hugged my grandfather right away when I saw him at the airport. He wondered who was this kid suddenly clinging onto him).

            I remember coming home one day with a folder that said HOMEWORK FOLDER. Earlier that day, Mrs. Sanchez had explained to me what it was for. At home, I cried to Mom because I forgot what it meant. You can see how poor my English was. I got fluent by second grade and stunningly good in English by third. I frequently read books at the library and my spelling was amazing. I cannot say the same for me now.

            Moving on. Come back to the right side of the main door. In front of the principal’s room is a Xerox machine that anyone can use. Sometimes teachers would ask me to photocopy a worksheet for them. I admit I was pretty much a teacher’s pet for all my years. Next to the Xerox machine is a computer cart. This cart can be wheeled to any class on the first floor. Everybody would get a laptop. Nobody was left out nor had to wait turns.

Across from that is the auditorium. It’s pretty big. The floor makes a downward ramp to the stage, which can be accessed through wooden stairs leading up to the stage, side stairs, or from a door backstage. The auditorium has three sections of seats. For graduation, the fellow graduates sit on the left side of the room as they get wait to be called to the stage alphabetically.

We also use the auditorium for music and drama class. These classes are called enrichment, where each day is a different type of class. There is also library and media arts. For music, we are taught recorder in third grade. It only costs about $5 (free for me), and it looks different from Indonesia’s plastic recorders. We also learned xylophones. And guitar with Mrs. Hasty. Everybody got a guitar, unlike here where we have to take turns on simple percussions. My current high school in Jakarta has about four guitars, and only one with complete strings. Before Mrs. Hasty, we had Mr. Smith, who was funny and liked by everyone. He played the piano. He was also the songwriter of “Walker school, Walker school, studying in class and learning the rules.” Later on, he moved to another school in District 65.

Besides singing in music class, I was also in chorus for some reason. This was lead by Mrs. Hasty. I enjoyed it, though I still do not have the vocals to sing. I also joined many other activities introduced by Walker, some of which I will talk about here. Others consist of basketball, swimming, French, and courses of tennis and lacrosse, and more I cannot recall at the moment. I regret to say I did not act upon those potentials of myself when I came back to Indonesia.

The hallway in front of the auditorium is used for Walker’s little bookstore that is opened everyday at recess time. Parent volunteers would come in incase there was ever any student that wanted to buy a book, eraser, or pencil. They were always between 10-50 cents, but utterly valuable. You could also sell your own stuff here. There would always be someone wanting to buy or sell something, including me. Mom would be one of the volunteers from time to time, also helping in Mrs. Maldonado’s class. Occasionally, this hallway would be used to hold a Scholastic book fair.

Alright, come back to the Xerox machine. On the left side of the auditorium, there is the teachers’ mailbox thing, where letters and papers for them are put. Across from that is a bulletin board that is also placed in front of every class to showcase the students’ work, and behind that, the restrooms. The ones upstairs is directly above this. Each restroom has a water fountain, so restroom breaks as a class are also drinking breaks. Indonesians aren’t very accustomed to drinking fountains, as shown on a tour of a particular university where they were astonished by having a refill fountain in one faculty.

In between the mailboxes and bulletin board, there is a hallway that leads to the cafeteria. As you walk, on the right side is Walker’s pledge (Be respectful, caring, here and ready) that we would state each morning along with The Pledge of Allegiance after the morning announcement. If you see to the left, there are windows to the outdoors. It shows the walkway from the little kids’ playground to the big kids, and some grass and plants that divide the building to the sidewalk.

Keep going until you reach the end of the hallway. To your left is the cafeteria and a door to the big kids’ playground, and on the right is the gym. We’ll come back to those later.

Xerox machine! Go to the right this time, towards Mrs. Rosenbluh’s classroom. There is another hallway, that also leads to  the gym. On the left side is the backstage door to the auditorium. On the right is also windows, this time to the garden. Yes, we have a garden. We go there sometimes. One time in third grade, we made ice cream there in little plastic baggies. It was fun. Walker was fun. I also planted something there in first grade. For a while, that photo of me and my friend was on Google. It isn’t any longer.

End of the hallway. Straight, gym. Right, custodian room where our clay pots would be fired. Far left, cafeteria. As you turn left, computer lab. Apparently, this is new for Indonesians who get excited by a room full of Mac’s in their university. Sometimes we use this to learn media arts, and sometimes we just play coolmathgames or something. We also use this room to do our MAP Test. MAP Test is something that I think we do every year or so. They give you questions based on how you answer. If you answer correctly, they will bring you to a more advanced question, and vice versa.

Okay, the gym! I love P. E., still do. I frown upon Indonesian schools’ physical education system, where we only get P. E. once a week, and it’s not even that contributing to our body. We mostly just sit and wait our turn, which is only about three minutes or less. I absolutely despise it. I don’t understand how people still don’t want to run or play a sport, since it’s the only time of the week you actually do something physical.

There are two P. E. teachers that I can remember in Walker. The famous Mr. Kasper (I truly apologize for miss-spelling considering he is not in the yearbook nor the school’s staff directory) and Mrs. Akins-Schanette. Mr. Kasper was well known for wearing shorts any day of the year, whether it be a boiling summer or a snowy winter.

The gym is big. There is a rule (I am not sure if it is world-wide, national, or state) that a gymnasium cannot have something above it. That’s why in a tornado drill, you are forbidden to be in the gym. Nothing is protecting you from above. It’s two stories straight with nothing in between us and the ceiling. Well, some pipes I guess.

We learn a whole lot of stuff in gym. From world dancing to flag football. All the equipments are complete.  My favorite thing to do in gym is climb. Every year, maybe even twice a year, there are ropes rolled from the ceiling down. There is a mattress  below it. You guessed it, we climb it! Everybody has to try, but not everybody gets to the top. I do, I always do. They put your name up if you can reach it. Oh yeah, the rope isn’t knotted either. It is pure you climbing.

There is also a net rolled down from the ceiling on an angle. It swings and sways, but for me, it is easy and fun! I have always wanted to try the rock climbing wall course in Chute, but I was already in Indonesia come my time to go to middle school. In my current school, only the members of Student Association for Environmental and Adventure Activity (Siswa Pencinta Alam) could go on it. In Chute, it is a requirement for students in P. E..

We also do fitness tests every semester. They test your height, how many push-ups you can do, curl-ups, and the pacer test. You write it on a piece of paper and they give it back to you for the next semester, so you can see how much better you’re getting.

Track and field is held for all District 65 schools in spring of every year. Only fourth and fifth graders get to do it. But, in gym, everybody is forced to try, because sometimes you don’t know what your potential is. We ran the mile, 50 yard dash, 100 yard dash, hurtles, long jump, high jump, and everything else that was being competed. If you did good, the teacher would ask if you wanted to be in the school’s track and field team. I was qualified to be in the hurtles and the high jump. I chose the latter, because nobody else from Walker could do it. And guess what? I won first prize! That was my fifth grade year. The medal is here hung up right beside me.

            Let’s get out of the gym, shall we? Go towards the cafeteria. A right from the gym doors to the inside (there is also a door (or maybe two) that leads to the parking lot). As you approach it, you will pass a door on the left and the right. The former is the teacher’s lounge where band practice is held. Opposite of that, the door on the right leads to the big kids’ playground and a bike rack. You can see two doors leading to the cafeteria. One straight where you are heading, and the other on the right side. It is the in and out door. In front of the cafeteria is a… I’m not sure what it’s called. Sort of like a board, but made out of cloth with plastic pockets. In it are the students’ lunch cards. You give your lunch money to your homeroom teacher, then this laminated paper can be used to get a hot lunch. The menu changes everyday, from pizza to sloppy joe to salad. Always with milk and apple sauce, though. If you didn’t bring money, you could also get a PB&J sandwich from Ms. Adams.

 I usually brought my own lunch from home though, due to the food not being halal. We call this type of lunch cold or sack lunch. In the morning, we would put our lunch bags into a little laundry basket. We then take turns bringing that basket down to the cafeteria come lunch time, and bring it back up after recess.

            The cafeteria is also used for afterschool-care. They watch movies and play games and do homework on a rug. Not only that, every year (or so), the whole student body plays bingo. They really did give prizes, I won a couple times. I recall making dog toys one year, out of some sort of rope that we would braid. I knew how to braid but not to make the starting knot, so instead asked Mrs. Levine (my sister’s fourth grade teacher) if she could help me braid. Again, I only needed the knot. She didn’t know that and I was too shy to explain.

            Fifth graders also had their Rocking New Year’s Eve Party there. It would be after the talent show. I sang Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer with Nancy and Evelyn. We had cake, party hats, and just a whole lot of fun. We all sang Auld Lang Synge.

            Okay, as you enter the cafeteria, there is a door on the far right. That would be the recess door. The first thing as you come out would be a paved ground and a chess table on the left. The chess team has practices in the library, so that table was just for sitting around. There is a tree in front of the table. On the right is that bike rack we talked about earlier. Keep going towards the left. Walkway between little and big kids’ playground. Swings. Behind that, a wide field that reaches the little kids’. We would use the field to play soccer, kickball, baseball, softball, flag-football, and run the mile in P.E..

            Alright, come back to the cafeteria door. This time, go straight. Ahead is the playground. It is big, but so is the little kids’. I’ve never seen anything like it in Indonesia. And again, this is only a school, not a park. On the left before the grass field is a basketball court. The good one. Behind the playground is another one, no nets but still usable.

            There are two set of stairs. One by the door to the little kids’ playground, and one by Mrs. Rosenbluh’s. Let’s go by the latter. Before that, you will see Ms. Levine’s speech therapy room which we also use for orchestra practice with Ms. Berger for fourth and fifth graders. Next to it is the nurse’s office, where yours truly came in crying from that trip I mentioned earlier. The nurse wasn’t there, but Mrs. Jaddaoui came right in time to take care of pained me. I cleaned the scrapes and got an ice pack from the freezer. There is also a bathroom and two beds in the nurse’s office. And if you were sick with the flu or the slightest bit of a fever, you couldn’t come to school the next day. Very different from Indonesia’s customs where nobody cared about being a little sick because you just couldn’t afford to miss class and have a ton of work and tests to catch up on.

 And there you have it. The whole first floor.

The first thing you will see up the stairs on the left is the library. In front is a display case with the newest books in a monthly theme. Come second semester, this glass will be taped with sheets of Battle of The Books participants, one of them yours truly. Battle of The Books is a reading competition between schools in District 65. According to Google, other places has it too. Volunteer fourth and fifth graders will compete in a few months range to represent their school in the district battle. There are a list of books you will need to read and make a summary and questions of. If you don’t read the determined amount by the determined date, then you will be crossed out from the list. Once we near the end, you will be put into groups of three and be able to choose a name for your team. You will then compete in the school battle which is an event where you are asked questions about those twenty books and you shall write the answer on the small white board that is provided for each team. The questions all start with “In what book…?” and you just need to write down the title.

            Battle of The Books is really fun, and you even receive a medal for it! I joined in both my years. I would usually finish reading all of the required books really fast, but would hate having to write a summary for them. Unfortunately, I had to go to Denver at one point and couldn’t be there for one of the year’s school competition.

            As you set foot in Walker’s library, you will notice the librarian’s desk on the left. It is a long desk for book check outs and turn ins. Across from that are computers you could use to find book whereabouts or even just cruising the internet on. Next to it is a rug and a Promethean board we have in every classroom. We would use that occasionally if Mrs. Rauth, the librarian, wanted to give us information on something from the web.

            Straight from the entrance are tables we could use to read or do our work on. On the right is a big rug we would sit on when Mrs. Rauth read books to us. The books she read were always themed accordingly following the month’s theme and reading level of each grade. She would sit in her rocking chair, open up a book with many sticky note bookmarks from all the classes she taught, and read out loud in a voice I admired. She really knew how to get us- or at least me- into the story. We would sit anywhere on that rug and listen and imagine in our heads. We never finished any of the books, it was left for us to read individually. I fell in love with many books by courtesy of Mrs. Rauth.

            The walls of this library is lined with books. There is even an extra shelf making an aisle with the one on the wall. You could find anything from picture books to encyclopedias. If I’m not mistaken, students are required to borrow (or renew) a book every week in this enrichment class. I, of course, found this as heaven. We would always have silent reading time in class where we got to lay on rugs and sit on bean bag chairs while sometimes licking on a lollipop, so I would always have a book handy. Each classroom had their own set of books, too. I also recall computers in some or every class. Lastly, near the door of the library stands yet two other computer carts, just as the one on first floor.

            At the beginning of each year, we would always pick out duties for every student. There were those in charge of fetching and returning the computer cart, fire drills (one in front and one in the back keeping a calm, single file line), and even kindergarten helpers for 5^th graders who would take the kindergarteners to the bus after school. I have been on each of these duties.

            Time to head down the long hallway filled with 3^rd-5^th grade classrooms. Mrs. Slattery, Mrs. Rouse, Mrs. Wood-Livingston. It was in fourth grade that I was awarded the Justin Wynn Award for Outstanding Leadership, Citizenship, and Sportsmanship. An award for 2 fourth graders from all 12 elementary schools in District 65. You would be in this community until you graduated high school. I still get the activity emails where you could sign up to do a beach clean up, help the elderly, paint murals, even go to summer camp, and so much more. Truly an amazing opportunity I wish I could’ve finished.

            It was also in fourth grade where I memorized the amount of bones in our body. “Just remember what room you were in,” explained Mrs. Rouse that day. “Room 206.” 206 bones in our body. Thank you for the tip, Mrs. Rouse. Third grade was just as great with Mrs. Slattery around. At the end of the school year, we played a basketball game boys against girls. Girls won, with Mrs. Slattery on the team. The year following, she moved to another school in District 65 and I really missed her. We started writing emails to each other.

You don’t even have to ask about fifth grade, it totally rocked! There were lots of funny stories concerning Mrs. Woods.  One time, my brother came into my class and asked for me. Mrs. Woods was joking around by asking who I was to him. Sister, he told her. “Get out of here!” Mrs. Woods remarked. And my little brother did just that. He walked right out the door. Quite a memorable story. Fifth grade was also the time our whole class (grade) went to Camp Timber-Lee. Just awesome. I still have the leather bracelet I made that day. Here I am, six years later, 9,811 miles away staring at that exact brown bracelet with my name engraved.

            On the right side of this hall is the ESL (English as a Second Language) classroom. The name really speaks for itself. This is where non-native students would learn English. Amazing teachers, Mrs. McGough and Mrs. Jaddaoui, I am forever in debt. I became so fluent because of them, especially Mrs. Jaddaoui who helped me through and through. We stayed in contact even until I came to Jakarta. One year, my sister, her friend, and I made a cake out of colored paper for Mrs. Jaddaoui’s birthday. I will never forget the way she taught me to pronounce letters and words until I could properly speak with an American accent and have a large vocabulary. Most Indonesians that asked me how I learned English was always astonished when I told them I was taught by a native speaker. They would always think there was an Indonesian there to teach me the meaning of each word, which is sort of the way they are taught in school. I also remember the way Mrs. Jaddaoui would give prizes to her students. I have the Chicago Bulls ball plushy in this very house. Aside from that, one year as we were taking the ISAT’s, Mrs. McGough gave us a little baggie filled with candy to chew on as we were tested.

            By the stairs leading down on the other side of the hall is Mrs. Olsen’s classroom. Mrs. Olsen taught art and was very good at it. You see, in Indonesia, everybody would make the same monotone painting. The teacher never cared. Art is art, and Mrs. Olsen understood that very well. She would always give A’s. She taught us so many techniques with all the tools provided in that room. Guided, everybody can do art. You cannot even compare my art here and my art with Mrs. Olsen- I have not made a decent drawing in the past six years. Mrs. Olsen taught us from the very basic of lines and spirals to the great magic of oil pastels and tie-dye on our drawings. Not to mention the clay pots we made every year. After every painting, we went to the racks to place our art for drying, only to come back a week later in awe.

Mrs. Olsen was also my bus companion the year I joined art club which was held early Thursday mornings. We would meet at the train station (I cannot recall the name, but the surroundings is vivid in my mind). Together, we would ride the bus to Walker. This was back when Nick- our car- was not yet ours. It was also because of Mrs. Olsen that I won a district-wide prize in third grade for drawing a tree (the never-ending kind she taught us that I still use to this day) with a squirrel in its hole and a bird perched on its branch, plus a little writing on the back of the drawing. It was Mrs. Olsen who taught us to never leave any blank space in our paintings.

            So there you have it. This amazing building that withholds so many of my childhood memories. A place I will forever hold dear in my heart. From the farthest point of the field to the bus port and everything in between.

            Welcome to Walker School.

A massive thank you to all my teachers, friends, and family that made my time in this very school valuable. Thank you for being there every step of the way, creating the most cherishable days.

Jakarta, Thursday, April 30^th 2020, 8:52 P.M.

Yours truly,

Alya Supangkat

There is so much more I could tell you about my activities in Walker alone, like The 100^th Day of School, pizza parties, Winter and Spring Shows, and Field Day . Not to mention all the journals I wrote throughout the years. Well, maybe someday. Stay tuned.