Better Than Losing A Better Classroom

An important idea in The Wave is ‘words can be used for harm or for good’. This idea means that words can be used to hurt people mentally and create bad things, but, at the same time can cheer a person up and change their life in a good way. The confusing thing is, is that good words can also be bad. For example, if someone said that they won their basketball game and you said ‘good’, then that would be a good thing to say. It’s also quite the same with harmful words. In The Wave, this conundrum is used in a smart way. For example, Ben Ross is taking his first class with The Wave as a base when he introduces the line,

Statsky then makes another faulty assumption. She writes “Winning and losing may be an inevitable part of adult life, but they should not be part of childhood” (Statsky 629). This assumes that winning and losing are already “not part of childhood.” What child has ever gotten to full adulthood without ever knowing the disappointment of loss or the joy of winning? To assume that children are psychologically incapable of handling competition and the occasional inevitable loss is to severely underestimate children's abilities.

The Wave is a story about a high school senior class that has been intrigued to join their teacher’s cult known as the Wave. Several people tried to prevent the denial of his movement. Laurie Saunders the main character in the wave, is a rebellious girl who is very ashamed of this movement and is not inspired by her history teacher. He shows them a very emotional video of what Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party did. Some of the students take it more personal than others do. Because of Laurie’s bravery, independence, and determination, Laurie denies the Wave.

Children learn the most through trial and error. Ashley Merryman agrees, saying, “It’s through failure and mistakes that we learn the most” (Merryman). As a famous author about child psychology Merryman uses a philosophical position to convey to the audience about the importance of letting children lose to help them grow and become better people. She also states that “we’re teaching kids that losing is so terrible that we can never let it happen” (Merryman). She continues that this destructive message is teaching kids react more towards losing instead of celebrating their success. Also that it is not okay to lose. Kids should know that not receiving participation trophies is okay, and that it helps them do better.

The Wave, by Todd Strasser, is a novel about a school-wide experiment about how the German people could have followed Hitler and the Nazis. Two characters Laurie Saunders and Robert Billings showed a dramatic change in their actions, popularity, and their emotions from the Wave experiment. Together they had a huge impact at their school, Gordon High.

Ashley Merryman, co-author of “Nature Shock,” (NY Times, Oct. 6, 2016) in “Forget Trophies, Let Kids Know It’s O.K. to Lose” argues that there is nothing wrong with losing because failure can actually be helpful. I passionately agree with this.

Ross was in control and had all the power. When the wave began it was about everyone being equal and on the same social level, but the longer it went on the more it appeared to be a dictatorship. One of the things that made Laurie realize that it went too far and was out of control was when Robert began to guard Mr. Ross because of his part in the wave and the power it gave him. Mr. Ross told his students that the wave was about community, uniting, and how it leads to success. The Football team joined the wave in attempt to help them win their games, but when the actual game happened they lost tremendously. Which revealed the wave may not be as efficient as it was made out to be by Mr. Ross. The disdain Laurie had for the wave because of the glorification of it was supported by the football teams

This statement demonstrates how important losing is, in order for us to learn and

This why we should not reward just because of showing up. To start, I found a very crazy piece of evidence in the article, “Do we Give Children Too Many Trophies?” by Michael Gonchar the text says. “If children always receive a trophy - regardless of effort or achievement - we’re teaching kids that losing is so terrible that we can never let it happen.” This shows that if kids loses in the future and get no trophy they could have a mental break down and quit sports entirely which can lead to a massive health disaster. For some backup on that many parents think that you must learn from your mistakes to become a humble and fun to be around person so eventually their kids will adopt this same personality and believe in that. So to make them humble and fun to be around is to not give trophies if they mess up and cost their team an important game and especially if they are not trying at all. This is a huge problem because it can ruin the future of the world. If we give the wrong message It could cause kids to quit and like what Lauren Tarshis said, “Kids who stick with team sports, exceed higher fitness levels to better grades.” So this can affect the world by giving kids bad jobs for not doing team sports, it also in extreme cases lead to the child turning into a

Each practice we would try to go over what we did wrong and what we didn 't do that we should have. It was later when I realized the pattern. Each game we would lose by less and less. This happened for the first 5 games or so. Then after that was when the tables turned on I believe our sixth game we won. Our team was so excited and the coach was very proud. So on the next practices we kept doing what we were doing and improving on it bit by bit, and It was working greatly. We improved an insane amount. So then we won the next game then the next and so on. It seemed like our coach and the team

KIds who win should get a trophy but kids who lose shouldn’t because that means that they are determined to do better and to beat the better person/team mext. We should be teaching kids that losing is alright to lose and that they should practice more and get better. If we don’t than kids will just sit down and do nothing because they know that they’ll get a trophy no matter what, this is a problem that needs to change. Just think a kid, one of yours, could just not go to a game and still get a trophy or they could just take a nap on the bench or court and they’ll still get a trophy no matter what, that’s also one more problem we need to solve.

First, you need to lose every now and then so you will be more prepared for later losses. When you are so used to winning and you finally lose at something it is hard to overcome that loss. Just like students at Gordon High not knowing what to do when The Wave was put to an end. It was also experienced when the Warriors lost 3 straight games in the NBA Finals to the Cavaliers.

The narrator begins this story stating, “None of them knew the color of the sky” (338). He refers to the cook, the correspondent, the captain, and the oiler, the main characters. This quote means that all of them are focused on fighting for survival, paying all of their attention to the waves. They fight against the waves, trying to stay alive. However, the author states, “A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats” (339). The waves are a symbol of the uncaring nature; it does not matter how hard the protagonists try to fight against the waves because nature continues its course; the waves continue to flow. However, the characters are determined to stay alive. They continue to face this external conflict that is nature, even when they realize that nature is

It was clearly shown that some individuals didn’t want o join the wave. “Let them make up their own minds about the wave. They’re individuals they don’t need me to help them” (Rhue 1981, p.77).

In 2004, the author Sonali Deraniyagala and her family – parents, husband Steve, and her two sons Vikram and Malli were in Sri Lanka for vacation when the tsunami struck that devastated Southeast Asia. And she was the only member of the family to survive in that tsunami. This completely changed her life and you follow her heartbreaking real story of how she managed to survive the tsunami. She mostly talked about her husband Steve and her two kids Vik (Vikram) and Mal (Malli). The book wave is mainly spent Sonali talking about her struggle with her losses of her family members. The conflict in this book is the Man vs. Nature because Sonali and her family members were hit by the tsunami. And Sonali is dealing with little of depression and she