Oliver Compton
Learning through failure
This is a story about learning through failure. Last year, my friends and I made a decision we were not proud of, but I believe one of the best ways to learn is by making a mistake, recognizing it, and seeing what you can change to make it better.
Last year I got in trouble for making a fort on campus. Several friends and I had thought it would be cool to make a fort near school. We brought in tools and cut down trees to make it. My friends and I worked on this fort for several weeks. We used saws, hammers, shovels, a hatchet, as well as our hands. Everday, we would eat our lunch and immediately rush into the woods to build our fort. We spent lunch every day on it, from the start of fall until after the first snowfall of winter. In the beginning of building we thought it would be a pile of sticks and rocks in a circle. When we got to that point we decided it would be cool to add on to it, so we found dead branches and built an A-frame like structure when it started getting closer to winter. It felt really cool that we were building something on our own, and gave us a break from school during the winter when we were stuck indoors. When winter came we decided to cut down a couple small trees and after we had cut the trees down we realized that we had maybe gone too far.
This was when Dave Farkas found out about our fort. I was sick the day Dave Farkas found out about the fort, so while I did get in trouble, I did not get suspended like my friends. I was confronted by Carlin and Farkas about our behavior. They looked at me with such anger and disappointment, and it made me feel so ashamed of myself. I felt like I was letting people down, which I don’t like to do. I felt bad after I got in trouble because I didn't realize what I was doing. We had gotten caught up in the moment and didn’t think about what we were doing, or the consequences of our actions.
If we had thought about our actions we would have asked a teacher before and developed a plan. If we had done that, we might have been able to build something cool without getting in trouble. This story is also a representation of peer pressure, at the beginning I thought it wasn't the greatest idea but I went along with it because my friends were doing it. From this experience, I learned to think about my actions more before going through with them. I have also learned to speak out to my peers when I think something is wrong.
Although adolescence is a time when we become more independent from our parents, this experience highlights why it’s so important for teens to still have a strong with relationship with adults. In Daniel Siegel’s Brainstorm, a book about adolescent psychology, he presents one of the 3 myths of adolescence: “growing up during adolescence requires moving from dependence on adults to total independence from them” (Seigal, 3) and “that teenagers need to fully separate from their parents in order to mature.’’ I included this quote because I want to show that teenagers should not fully separate away from their parents but they can start to find their own independence and start making some decisions on their own. This quote connects to my story because I noticed that we should not have gone on our own and built a fort without asking an adult first, because while we are maturing, we still could have used some guidance.
If we had talked to adults, maybe this problem could have been avoided. There have been times when I thought I knew everything and didn't need adults' help for anything. As I’ve gotten older I am realizing that it is important to learn things from adults or else you won't know how to do important tasks. If everyone thought they were good enough and didn't learn from adults we wouldn't have any progress.
I think this fort story and Siegel’s 3rd myth of adolescence relate to how our friendships make us who we are today. This is because we need to have experiences with our friends outside of adult supervision to make mistakes and learn. If we had taken the time to talk and plan with an adult we would have been able to build our fort without getting into trouble. However, from getting in trouble, we still learned the same lesson. If we had learned the lesson from an adult we would have not gotten in trouble, but because we did get in trouble we will have this lesson engraved in our memory.
I hope my story can inspire people to think before they act. Adolescents should be able to make a few of their own decisions in order to learn from trial and error, but should also think through the potential consequences, and continue to seek help from adults sometimes.
Works Cited
Siegel, Daniel J. Brainstorm. The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain. Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2013.
Learning through failure
This is a story about learning through failure. Last year, my friends and I made a decision we were not proud of, but I believe one of the best ways to learn is by making a mistake, recognizing it, and seeing what you can change to make it better.
Last year I got in trouble for making a fort on campus. Several friends and I had thought it would be cool to make a fort near school. We brought in tools and cut down trees to make it. My friends and I worked on this fort for several weeks. We used saws, hammers, shovels, a hatchet, as well as our hands. Everday, we would eat our lunch and immediately rush into the woods to build our fort. We spent lunch every day on it, from the start of fall until after the first snowfall of winter. In the beginning of building we thought it would be a pile of sticks and rocks in a circle. When we got to that point we decided it would be cool to add on to it, so we found dead branches and built an A-frame like structure when it started getting closer to winter. It felt really cool that we were building something on our own, and gave us a break from school during the winter when we were stuck indoors. When winter came we decided to cut down a couple small trees and after we had cut the trees down we realized that we had maybe gone too far.
This was when Dave Farkas found out about our fort. I was sick the day Dave Farkas found out about the fort, so while I did get in trouble, I did not get suspended like my friends. I was confronted by Carlin and Farkas about our behavior. They looked at me with such anger and disappointment, and it made me feel so ashamed of myself. I felt like I was letting people down, which I don’t like to do. I felt bad after I got in trouble because I didn't realize what I was doing. We had gotten caught up in the moment and didn’t think about what we were doing, or the consequences of our actions.
If we had thought about our actions we would have asked a teacher before and developed a plan. If we had done that, we might have been able to build something cool without getting in trouble. This story is also a representation of peer pressure, at the beginning I thought it wasn't the greatest idea but I went along with it because my friends were doing it. From this experience, I learned to think about my actions more before going through with them. I have also learned to speak out to my peers when I think something is wrong.
Although adolescence is a time when we become more independent from our parents, this experience highlights why it’s so important for teens to still have a strong with relationship with adults. In Daniel Siegel’s Brainstorm, a book about adolescent psychology, he presents one of the 3 myths of adolescence: “growing up during adolescence requires moving from dependence on adults to total independence from them” (Seigal, 3) and “that teenagers need to fully separate from their parents in order to mature.’’ I included this quote because I want to show that teenagers should not fully separate away from their parents but they can start to find their own independence and start making some decisions on their own. This quote connects to my story because I noticed that we should not have gone on our own and built a fort without asking an adult first, because while we are maturing, we still could have used some guidance.
If we had talked to adults, maybe this problem could have been avoided. There have been times when I thought I knew everything and didn't need adults' help for anything. As I’ve gotten older I am realizing that it is important to learn things from adults or else you won't know how to do important tasks. If everyone thought they were good enough and didn't learn from adults we wouldn't have any progress.
I think this fort story and Siegel’s 3rd myth of adolescence relate to how our friendships make us who we are today. This is because we need to have experiences with our friends outside of adult supervision to make mistakes and learn. If we had taken the time to talk and plan with an adult we would have been able to build our fort without getting into trouble. However, from getting in trouble, we still learned the same lesson. If we had learned the lesson from an adult we would have not gotten in trouble, but because we did get in trouble we will have this lesson engraved in our memory.
I hope my story can inspire people to think before they act. Adolescents should be able to make a few of their own decisions in order to learn from trial and error, but should also think through the potential consequences, and continue to seek help from adults sometimes.
Works Cited
Siegel, Daniel J. Brainstorm. The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain. Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2013.