Narrative Essay On Failing High School

“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space” (Johnny Cash). People, in order to prosper in life, need to accept that they failed and try harder the next time. When I was a third grader, family issues robbed my focus during school. I just didn’t feel like trying in the classroom. I thought learning was a waste of time. In May, my parents received a call from the school saying that I was going to have to repeat the year. When this happened, I was livid that the school would fail me back a grade. I blamed everyone but myself. Later in life, I realized failing third grade put me back on to the path of success. For me personally, failing third grade was unfortunate, but I can’t say that I didn’t benefit from it. This experience made me have to learn from my misstep and exert myself harder in order to succeed.

My mom was an alcoholic, and my dad was a drug addict. It would have been easy to blame my failure on the lack of stability I had at home; instead, my determination to succeed in life and my academic career grew. This year I didn’t understand stoichiometry, so I sought out help from my teacher, Ms. Pommerening. She helped me to understand how to set up the problem, which helped me ace the test. Another time, where I had to focus on school work, was when my father died. I had two days left of school, but I had finals on those days so I couldn’t miss school. I just decided to tough it out and left my family problems at home. These are several of the life lessons I learned from being held back. I learned that I needed to prioritize school first and that if I don’t understand a concept being taught, I need to ask for