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Middle School Is Not The Easiest Time

Decent Essays

Gnome Good
I don’t think that I will ever be able to forget middle school. For me, middle school was not the easiest time in my life. I had just moved to a new town and I wasn’t the best at making friends. Trying to form new friendships, while also starting middle school was not an easy task. I had just started the sixth grade at a new school, with new faces, new classrooms, and a new teacher. I had a typical schedule for a sixth grader, nothing too difficult. Social Studies, Science, Gym, Math, and my least favorite, English. Although I enjoy English now, I can’t say that I always have. At that point in my life, English was something that I was not good at and thought I would never be good at. I worked hard in class and tried my best, but …show more content…

As a sixth-grader, I had what Dweck refers to as a fixed mindset. In her TED Talk The Power of Yet, Dweck states, “if you get a failing grade, you think, I’m nothing, I’m nowhere”. In other words, Dweck believes that students that do not receive the grade they want, immediately consider themselves failures. The concept of failure is prominent in an excerpt from On Writing, by Stephen King, a popular writer from Maine. King states, “Now that I was away from the administrative offices of Lisbon High, I felt able to muster a little honesty. I told Mr. Gould that I didn’t know much about sports”. In making this statement, King leads us to believe that he is afraid of failing. Similar to Dweck’s idea of fixed mindset, King presents a fixed mindset towards his ability to write about sports. King is afraid of failure and is, therefore, afraid of letting Mr. Gould down.
Even as an 11-year-old in middle school, I struggled with the idea of failing, and I think that is why I was so afraid to have my narrative critiqued. I could not accept failure.
“Interesting”, she said as she read my story. “This makes absolutely no sense; you have gone from one place to another without any explanation as to how your characters got there.” Laughing, she remarked, “Courtney, this is gnome good!”
My face got hot and I raged with anger, in that moment, I felt complete hatred for my English teacher. In my mind, I was a failure. I wanted so

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