In my first years of life, I was the diva. I was the star. I was the only one that my mother ever paid any attention to. I was the bomb. Although my father worked very long days to provide my mother and me with a means of sustenance, there was plenty of love from my mom to nurture me as I grew into a bubbly young girl. Entering kindergarten at 4 years of age, I was similar to every other little kid. I was rambunctious, playful, naughty, and unstoppable. If I did not fall sleep in class, I would play with my dolls as the teacher lectured. Sure enough, I was reprimanded and given “time out” every time. But it was all right. My grades were average but I scored high enough to please my parents.
I lived in a wonderland of games, toys and friends until a certain examination came my way. It was my first real math exam that changed everything. My father, recently returned from New York City, did all he possibly could to train me in the ways of addition and multiplication but to no success. I failed that exam. I added instead of multiplying. I got a grade of 74 in math so I missed my shot at becoming one of the Top Ten. I finished 14th in my class.
At first, failure was none of my business: I did not really care how high or low my grades were. But when I suddenly experienced what failure was like, I did not like it one bit. In fact, a fear started to grow within me. It was like a hideous, chupacabra-like alien had landed on my territory and I felt I had to do everything to get rid of it. I studied mathematics very hard: harder than I ever had before. I studied how to divide 9 by 3 and 8 by 4, even if I so despised numbers to my very core. I did not like them because they made things abstract to me. Things which I knew became unknown w...
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... that hated math. It was the ‘me’ that did not care about anything, not even my parents’ happiness and expectations. It was the old ‘me.’ Of course, I could not get rid of something that was essentially ‘me.’ That was utterly impossible. So I put her to sleep, that spoiled carefree little girl. We were one, yet we were different. The alien was not failure itself, but the self that accepted defeat without trying. I do not like that self but I am grateful to her for teaching me the meaning of hard work and perseverance. Now, I know that to taste the sweetness of a corn cob, you must first toil in the planting of the corn seed. I thank my parents, my teachers, my friends, and everyone who defined me as person. Thank you for teaching me why ‘trying’ is important, to me and to the ones I love.
My ‘end’ turned out to be my ‘beginning.’ My failure lead to my success.
When I speak of failure, I speak of putting one’s entire being into attempting a specific task and still not being capable of accomplishing it. Before I took my driver’s test, I practiced driving to and from school almost every day with my mom. When I actually took the test, however, I hit a cone trying to parallel park. A feeling of absolute devastation washed over me, as it began to dawn on me that I would not be showing off my new license to my friends the next day. Upon further introspection, however, I came to the conclusion that there was no one to blame other than myself; and that I may have not prepared for the test as much as I should have.
This paper explores the factors involved in success in the teaching field regardless of the environment. The information is based on the interview of current teacher Jane Satrom and her experience with a variety of adversities as a long time educator such as attending professional learning community (PLC) and department planning period (DPP) meetings. Her responses to various questions are compared to written advice for success in the college textbook Peak Performance: Success in College and Beyond in order to verify which skills and strategies are necessary in order to succeed. Major themes discussed are self-control, motivation, time management, and goal setting as used to succeed in the classroom. There are varying perspectives in the definition
While looking over my transcripts, I observed that my grades for the most part either remained bad or got worse second semester. Despite how I perform in those classes I have the easiest time understanding math, and the hardest time with history. The trends in my transcript correlate to how I’ve been my entire life, I give up easily. Once the smallest thing goes wrong I give up rather than trying persevering. I choose to keep rolling down a hill because it's easier, rather than to push myself to climb it.
I have had the luck of being the oldest of my mothers’ seven children, and the pleasure of having three of my own, and one step-son. I’ve spent a lot of time changing diapers, wiping noses, and kissing ouchies. I’ve carried babies on my hip that I’ve seen off to kindergarten, helped dressed for the first school dance, attended their graduation, and even been there when they have had their first baby. I have spent a lot of time analyzing their behavior, moods, or lack thereof. I’ve concluded that there are 4 types of children, I have been blessed with one of each. The 4 different types are: The Superstar, The Kool Kat, The Lil’ Mama or Little Man (depending on the sex of the child), and The Rebel.
When I was in fourth grade, everything was fine I had a lot of friends back in elementary school. Back then I was falling a little behind in math. But hey let's be honest I know that a lot of us don’t really like math.The subject that I was really good at was reading and writing. Anyway we were all on the blue rug in ms. Tetleys classroom and we were reviewing math homework. And actually i did pretty well. For like the first time ever.
Since 7th grade I've been challenging myself and my teacher that I could ace a test. Apparently in 7th grade I didn’t ace my test, but instead I got a C for me it means that I failed. I cried, I felt like I was a failure and I'll never achieve this goal, and I felt I'll never be useful or important in life if I don’t at least achieve one goal. But then,
Thinking about school and grades again has also reminded me of my mother. I got back my biology exam yesterday and got a 90 on it. I was so happy because of the fact that the class was really difficult and there were lots of terms to memorize. More importantly, I thought my mom would commend me for studying hard and getting a good grade on this exam. Instead, she asked me why I didn’t get a perfect score on the exam.
Failure is one aspect of life that no one can avoid. The terror that comes from failure is that it has the power to break someone down to where they feel they can not get up and overcome the situation. Failing at a situation seems to make all hard work vanish in an instant, as if all the time and effort that was put forth into succeeding was never even there. Although failure can hurt and cause anxiety and even depression, it also allows a person to discover that even though they have been crushed they can still conquer it and succeed in the end.
There are several qualities to have to be successful in college. These qualities can range from attending class to going above and beyond what’s expected. Success comes from the journey taken or the path chosen. Success also comes from being prepared. As a student, I must step up to the challenge and find the path to success along the way. Several ways I define success is to uphold academic integrity, have the ability to prioritize, and to motivate myself to stay on top of what needs to be accomplished.
Growing up, I always felt out of place. When everyone else was running around in the hot, sun, thinking of nothing, but the logistics of the game they were playing. I would be sat on the curb, wondering what it was that made them so much different from me. To me, it was if they all knew something that I didn’t know, like they were all apart of some inside joke that I just didn’t get. I would sit, each day when my mind wasn’t being filled with the incessant chatter of my teachers mindlessly sharing what they were told to, in the hot, humid air of the late spring and wonder what I was doing wrong. See, my discontent
Everyone has failed in life but usually failing helps us learn and gain knowledge through the hard work and determination. From that we learn a lesson and that failure is embedded into our mind. In math class of sophomore year, I encountered a moment in my life where I failed. At that moment, I felt as if I wasn’t good enough and was a failure. The only subject I thought I enjoyed had brought my self-esteem down.
Failures throughout my life have shaped the person that I am now. In athletics, I don’t take losing well and when I fail I always get discouraged. Losing does not only discourage me, it also gives me more of a competitive edge and makes me strive to get better; in order to avoid failing the next time. I had always played baseball and if I went a game without getting a hit, I would stay at the field and have my dad pitch to me for at least an hour, until I felt better about the failures during the game. Failure is inevitable and can occur in anything that I do, including athletics and academics.
Everything started to crumble down and I was left right where I stated. I then came to understand that I must accept the fact that I failed. In order to overcome my failure and improve it was the first step. That experience had a big change in my life. From that moment I never thought that my efforts were satisfying.
Michael Jordan once said, “I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I have been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed” (BrainyQuote). To be successful means to complete a goal or task at hand. Many people want success but do not know how to achieve it. In his book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell writes “To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years…And what’s ten years? Well, it’s roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.” (Gladwell 41). Gladwell is right that Ten thousand hours is the magic number because to achieve mastery in a certain skill it cannot happen overnight. The “Ten Thousand Hour” rule is the formula for success in achieving mastery of a skill because it integrates practice, talent, and most of all opportunity.
Failure is inevitable. Every single person experiences failure in their life. These failures can be rather insignificant, or they can be catastrophic. But, no matter the size, all failures are painful. For some, failure hurts the most whenever one has been trying to succeed for a very long time, and then fail. So much time and effort is put in to achieving a goal, but all is lost when strikes. Unfortunately, this happened to me. I had put a lot of time and effort into becoming an honor graduate of Hempfield Area High School, but I became ill with “senior-itis” and never met my goal. Although failing to become an honor graduate had an immense impact on my parents and I, it helped me set high goals for college, and realize important lessons