Blog Post #7 Pre-Write

The community of MetWest is one born of the OUSD (Oakland Unified School District). As many people are aware the OUSD has had a rash of administrative and financial woes that have all but crippled it completely. The OUSD that I was a part of was a cumbersome and sickly beast weighed down by bureaucracy. It was in this climate that I spent my school career and where MetWest started. A determined group of parents, staff, and some very motivated students made the whole thing work despite all the difficulties. During my time in the OUSD I learned to never expect anything to work right or correctly, and MetWest was no exception. In fact, I would say that it was this dysfunction that really forced us to innovate and build up resistance to all the red tape and disinterested higher administration, don’t get me wrong I would have preferred more funds and resources but the “make do” attitude that pervaded MetWest was a positive necessity.

It was this necessity that drove us forward. At MetWest your learning experience was what you put in, not what you could absorb by rote memorization. Naturally this attitude, or rather this atmosphere tended to imbue its students with certain traits. Many MetWest students could be described as more self reliant and open to personal growth than your typical OUSD student. We placed less stock in the idea that personal value was determined  by an abstract numerical total derived from an often obtuse test, and more value in our experiences and what we learned and could apply in the practical world. In all candor, there is worth in being able to do well on tests and academic pursuits, but I think that there is more value in knowing how to build skills and operate in less than optimal situations. The adversity of the OUSD imparted to the students of MetWest a greater inner strength and character than we could have developed anywhere else.