What I Learned From My Mistakes

I feel awkward answering this question because I have made many mistakes and there isn’t anything good out of those mistakes. In my opinion, wrong decisions never bring anything positive. Wrong decisions decrease morale and self-esteem. At a young age, mistakes or wrong decisions don’t affect much, but as you get older wrong decisions can have a tremendous negative impact. There aren’t second chances for people who make wrong decisions. I know that deep down below the surface mistakes can bring opportunities to learn and improve ourselves, but in this rapidly changing and moving world, there isn’t time to reflect and learn from those mistakes. If wrong decisions brought opportunities for learning and personal improvement, many

“If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.” I agree with this statement, because everyone makes a mistake at least once in their life. All a mistake does is show that you are human. What matters is what you do with your mistake.

What makes me unique is that I am not afraid of failure. When I set a goal I do not focus on whether I might or might not be successful; I concentrate on doing my best and putting all of my effort into the task. What separates me from others is the adversity I’ve been through, my diverse skills, leadership abilities, my contribution to the community, and my work ethic.

Alfie Kohn discussed multiple fabulous points in his article, “Degrading to De-Grading”. The author suggests more effective ways to assess students’ progress other than numerical or letter grades. Kohn goes into detail about why our current grading system is flawed. Grades can cause students to lose interest in learning which causes them to stop taking challenges. If students are not engaged and interested than they are not retaining the information they are being taught. The grading system can also cause students to develop unhealthy competition with one another for instance, “I got a better grade than you!”. Indeed, grades are a wonderful concept, but they tend to be more hurtful than helpful. In some cases, grades can have positive effects on students. For example, setting goals for various assignments, or receiving help where they are struggling. Though, there are alternatives that could make positive changes in the system.

Sometimes life lessons are learned the hard way. Unfortunately for me, this is how I learned mine. I do not mean to make this sad and depressing, but this is the truth.

One example demonstrating that grades lead to limited learning of material, can be illustrated by a study that was conducted of students, some of whom were graded. One group of students was told about being graded and the other group was not. The group who was “told they’d be graded on how well they learned a social studies lesson had more trouble understanding the main point of the text than did students who were told that no grades would be involved” (Kohn). This experiment shows how students concerned getting a good grade detracts from the students overall understanding. In my experience, students have so much homework, activities, and pressure to excel that it becomes challenging to learn topics outside of those being assigned. For example, in order to complete history worksheets, students do not always read the passages to find the answers, but rather skim the passage for keywords

In this course, History 101 Western Civilization to 1689, the five things I have learned are: Homer’s life and writings; Aristotle, and his synthesis of early thinkers; Alexander the Great, and his legacy; Julius Caesar, and his power; and finally, Martin Luther, and his influence. I feel that in this course I learned more about people in history than I have ever learned before. These people I am discussing have made tremendous impacts on the world and have allowed so much growth in western civilization. The topics I have picked to discuss are the most important to me because they symbolize, in my mind, eras, and the great changes of the world, mainly through mindset and belief. These five topics show how people are needed to make changes, and to make history, and how the ideas that are brought before these times have lasted the years.

Human beings make mistakes; sometimes they learn from their first mistake, sometimes they learn after

Not all homework is a grade and that right there is where most students end up going wrong. Just because a professor gives students something that is not specifically a grade does not mean it is useless. Professors give things out that are essential for students to pass; however, whether he or she even looks at that specific assignment again is all on them because after that assignment leaves the professors hand it is the students’ responsibility. A ton of students seem to think that if something is not a grade that there is no need to do it and it is just a waste of his or her time. Most assignments that are not taken back up by a professor are given so the students have everything he or she needs to study for any upcoming grade such as a test, quiz, or project. Most study guides are literally the tests excepted they are worded differently so if a student actually does what he or she is supposed to do then they should

Most students’ do assignments and prepare for tests only to get a good grade. They do not care about learning, as long as they are able to graduate. Learning does not come from being graded, it takes discipline and passion to learn. When trying to learn something new most people practice and or study rather than being graded.

Throughout our life we will always meet many people that teach us major life lessons,

PROMPT #2: PROMPT #2: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

In life, there is always going to be times when you learn lessons when it’s too late for you to fix them and for me that always will happen. One lesson that I wished I had known back then would be to stick up for myself. Another would be that you shouldn’t care what others think of you. A big one that I wish I had known would be that someone out there has probably felt the same pain that I was going thought at that point in time so I should have told someone about my pain. These are only a few of the lessons I have learned but they have the deepest meaning to me.

A famous saying by Al Franken goes like “Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless its a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.” I think mistakes are necessary. It shapes you to become a better, wiser and a stronger person who is prepared to face further challenges as well.

Since it 's safe to say there is no perfect person, then I think it 's safe to say that we all make mistakes. Does our mistakes define us? No, we are not our mistakes. Just as The Great Muhammad Ali quoted-- "It 's the repetition of affirmation that leads to belief. And once