Rising from Failure

"When they [NASA] were soliciting applications for astronauts, they rejected people with pure histories of success and instead selected people who had had significant failures and bounced back from them" (Dweck 29).

Imagine that Poly has a selection philosophy similar to NASA's. You are applying to Poly as an incoming ninth grader and have been asked to write a short reflection of 250-300 words on a significant academic or school failure and how you bounced back. (Not your personal life.)

Begin the post by including the two paragraphs above (the prompt) and then begin a new paragraph for your response.

• Write with integrity about something appropriate for sharing with the world. An application (or your blog) isn't the place to write about intensely personal experiences. Always consider your audience and purpose when writing.

• Use the paragraph formatting discussed in the video.

• Proofread and publish the post.

As an incoming 6th grade student who has never taken a language in school before, my first year at Chandler School proved to be one of the hardest experiences of my life. Being one of the few students who arrived from a public school, I was introduced to this new concept of learning more than just English in school. Already being a fluent Spanish speaker at home gave me the false preconception that I should put no effort in class whatsoever; however, by the second quarter my grade was on the verge of becoming a C+. 

It was no mystery that something was wrong with how I was learning. Having spoken Spanish all my life gave me the idea that I had an advantage over the other kids which subsequently, caused me to have a more lax approach. My teacher, Mrs. Cote, having the uttermost experience teaching language, informed me that I was not the first to have suffered my troubles. We both agreed in order to help my grade I needed a new approach towards learning my first language.

Every moment I was free I met with her and started to get an understanding of the concept. The results were almost instantaneous. After the end of the third quarter, my grade slowly became better and better as time went on until it reached the A range. I figured that if it were not for my sixth grade Spanish teacher, I would not have the ability to take multiple languages in high school like I am now.

image credit: http://www.signgenerator.org