Lopez 1 Reberta Lopez Professor Ogbara English 100 Section 0813 October 9, 2013 Taking the Bull by the

Horns Since I was younger, I had done really well in school. Learning had come so easy to me, and I would always succeed in class. My mom and whole family was always proud of my achievements in school. My mom was the main person who had always encouraged me to do my best in school and encouraged me to always be smart. In elementary school, my teachers loved to have me in class because I was such an excellent student. I really did rely on the encouragement and support of others to push me to succeed in school. As I got older, this bad habit of relying on others to push me and to have their acceptance really made me struggle in school and learning. I have always done great in school, from getting high scores on tests and always being at the top of my class. My mom and family have always encouraged and praised me for being so smart; and I use quotations because I have no idea if I am still smart. To be smart to me means to be successful in school. Im not all that sure what success means, or how to come upon it. I think that in Gattos article, Against School, he explains the way I see success. John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher named New York City teacher of the year 1989-1991, states in this country to think of success [is] as synonymous with, or at least dependent on schooling Gatto believes that when people think of becoming successful they associate it with being successful in school. I believe that the only way to become successful is to go to school and excel in it.

Lopez 2 My mom had always pushed me to do my best in school and to always be as smart as I can be. I remember when I was in the second grade my mom was preparing me for an upcoming vocabulary test. We were in the kitchen while she was cooking dinner. I have no idea what was for dinner that day, but I can remember exactly what we were doing. She would pick a word off of my vocabulary list and then tell me to spell it. I spelled every word correct that day except yellow and boat. She started yelling at me saying that these words are so simple, and asking me why was I getting them wrong. She repeated the spelling of the words for me and told me to repeat them back to her, and if I got it wrong we would repeat that process all over again. This went on until I was able to perfectly recite the spelling of yellow and boat. I felt like the students in Hard Times by highly acclaimed novelist Charles Dickens. The children in that novel were being drilled with questions by the adults in their classroom. The adults expected them to know every fact, and only fact. They expected the children to be filled with only facts. Just like them I was being drilled with questions and was expected to be filled with facts, which were the correct spellings for my vocabulary words. Even though my mom would get frustrated when I didnt understand things in school, or struggle with my spellings, she was proud of me still for being smart. My mom, family and teachers always praised me for having such good grades, and for doing well in school. I would receive money or a new toy from my uncle or mom if I was awarded the top student of the month by my teacher, and I always felt proud receiving that award. My teachers had nothing but good things to say about me during parent teacher conferences. She would tell my mom that I was an excellent student, and that it was such a pleasure to have me as one of her students. All this praise really did make me feel good about myself and made me feel like I doing something good. Now looking back on this I realize that all

Lopez 3 this praise could have crippled me. In The Perils and Promises of Praise, Carol S. Dweck discusses how praise can lead to a fixed mind-set or a growth mind-set. She states Praise is intricately connected to how students view their intelligence. Obviously I had loved all this praise, but it did make me believe I was smart and that was that. I was a student with a fixed mind-set, one who was only focused on how smart I was and only wanted to show off how smart I was. I remember, during one parent conference, my teacher telling my mom that she thought that the class wasnt challenging for me and that I should be placed in a school for gifted children. My teacher gave her a brochure of the schools for gifted children that were close to where I lived. Later that day my mom showed the brochure to my dad asking him if I should go to one of those schools. He immediately said no, saying he didnt want me to be bussed off to some school in another part of the city. My mom agreed with him on his decision, so that was the end of that. This didnt bother me at the moment, but now looking back I think his decision really affected me. What if I had gone to a gifted school at a young age, and learned early on what to expect from learning that challenged me. I didnt have to try hard in school or even put that much effort into learning something new. I know this affected me when school became more challenging. In middle school I was in the gifted program, which meant I was in higher level classes than the rest of my peers. The work was somewhat challenging and it took me a while to comprehend the new things that I was learning, but I still was able to understand it. I was falling behind in class because it was hard for me to keep up with what I was learning, as a result my grades started to drop. I was scared of what my mom would think and I was also scared of not being at the top of my class anymore. My mom told me that I would have to try harder on

Lopez 4 keeping up with my classes, but she no longer praised me for my good grades, or even helped me with my school work. My family was proud of me being in the gifted program, they would brag about how I was the smartest one in the family and how successful I would be one day. They had all these goals of what I eventually become, and what university I would go to, but they didnt know my real struggle. They didnt know the struggle of my grades slowly falling, the struggle of me falling behind, and the struggle of me not being so smart anymore. I was bringing in Bs with not that much effort, my lowest grade was a C and that was because I had missed a whole week of school for personal problems. The work got harder and I was still putting in the same amount of effort that I had been putting in my entire life, but not receiving such excellent grades. This tragically affected me in my later years of education. When I moved into high school I was in classes that were meant for students two years older than me. I was taking algebra two, biology and chemistry my freshman year. I still was putting in the same amount of effort that I had I middle school, and maybe receiving a D here or there. My math teacher that year never checked homework, which thankfully I never did. She would have a student from each of our sitting rows check our homework and they would always mark that everyone in the row did the homework. So I wasnt doing the homework and doing a decent job on quizzes and tests, the grades I was pulling in were Bs or Cs. I wasnt even encouraged by my mom to get good grades; I wasnt even scorned if I got a D or C on a test. She just told me that since the class was at a higher level for me, the work would be very difficult; she told me that all that mattered was if I was passing the class. I felt like I was not living up to the expectations of my mom and family, and not on that pedestal my family had me on. By my tenth grade year, I was no longer living with my mom, and I was no longer encouraged to do well in school by her. I had found myself in a similar situation as that of a

Lopez 5 Freedom Writer from The Freedom Writers Diary. I dont know what Im going to do or where Im going to go. I dont even know if Im going to be able to go to college. (Freedom Writer, 197). That student was dealing with a problem of not knowing where he was going to be living, and he faced the stress of not even knowing if he would have to drop out of school to support him and his mom. The summer before my tenth grade year we were evicted from our house and had to find somewhere to live. The only place my mom found was a house in Redlands, I wasnt sure if I would be going back to my same school or have to go to another one. To be able to continue going to high school I had to live with my brother and his family. I was a financial burden to them and was completely unwelcomed by his wife. I wanted to keep going to my same school, but I hated living in an unwelcomed home. I wanted to do well in school, but this stress of my living situation and the effort I only knew how to put into school really affected my grades. They started to slowly decline and I really had no idea what to do. Do I try harder and put in more effort into studying and trying to keep up in class, or do I just give up? I really never had to study for a class, I didnt have to do homework to understand the material, and I didnt even need to put much thought into what I was learning. School became difficult, and I couldnt adapt, so I just gave up. I didnt study, I did homework when I felt like it, and I just stopped caring about the grades I was getting. It was a struggle to even pass my classes, some came easy to me and others hit me with extreme difficulty. The tough classes I barely passed, and in the easier ones I was pulling in good grades. At this point I was in serious in need of a wakeup call if I wanted to go to college and become successful. Thinking is an action. (Hooks). It wasnt until my senior year, after having my daughter, that I realized this. I think that the point Bell Hooks was trying to get across in Critical Thinking is that if you want to become a critical thinker, which will lead to becoming

Lopez 6 smart and successful, you must take action. So to achieve this I studied hard, did homework, and spent as much time possible trying to learn the material in my classes to have the best grades that I could. It was tough doing this along with raising my daughter. There were moments where had wanted to give up, but I pushed through them knowing this is what I had to do. Im not sure if I started working hard because I wanted to succeed for my daughter, or because I realized that I had to be my own motivation. I knew that graduating and eventually going to college would mean I would be able to supply the best future for my daughter and become a great role-model for her. I realized that no one is going to be holding my hand for the rest of my life and I have to be an advocate for myself. I stopped blaming the material being too hard and started to adapt to the things that were being thrown at me. I knew that my grades and learning depended all on me, and I had to take the bull by its horns as the saying goes. Our thoughts and emotions affect motivation. Motivation is a drive or desire that compels us to do something. (Lawson PhD). In Lawsons article Connection Between Emotions and Learning she explains how our emotions can be tied with our ability to learn. Learning, trying hard and wanting to succeed have become a very emotional thing for me. I am grateful right now to be in my first semester of college. I didnt think I would be able to start college because I was in a tough financial situation where I couldnt afford to go to school. Im proud of myself for starting college and Im working hard to juggle life and school. I just hope that I dont fall back into some bad habits. College is another level for me, but I know that with some hard work and dedication Ill be able to succeed because Im not only doing it for myself, but also for my daughter. My whole life had I relied on others to push me to do well in school. I only strived to live up to the expectations of others. I also never put much effort into school, because learning had

Lopez 7 come so easy to me. Keeping with this mindset and attitude, I eventually started to decline in school and learning became very difficult for me. It took me a long time to realize that I cant depend on others to push me to do the things that I need to do. I also realized that I cant always live up to the expectations of others and only do the best that Im capable of doing. I learned that my future and learning solely relies on me and there are no excuses for anything that happens in my life beside my own actions.

Lopez 8 Works Cited Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. n.p: n.p, 1845. Print Dweck, Carol S. The Perils and Promises of Praise. Early Intervention at Every Age. 65.2 (2007) :34-39 Gatto, John Taylor. Against School. Harpers Magazine Sept. 2003: n.p. print. Gruwell, Erin. ,eds. The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. New York: Broadway Books, 1999. print.