The Problem of Ridicule When Entering a New Educational Institution - Essay Example

Learning From Ridicule When people hurt you over and over, think of them like sand paper. They may scratch and hurt you a bit, but in the end, you end up polished and they end up useless. —Chris Colfer I still remember my first day at college in the United States; I was anxiously sitting in the second row of the classroom waiting for the lecture to start. Suddenly, I felt something thrown at me coming from the back of the classroom. I looked in that direction and saw three guys laughing. I realized that they were throwing paper balls at me. It was bad enough that I was nervous about being in a strange school on the first day of classes, but having a few rude classmates treat me that way for no reason at all left me feeling unsure of myself. How could I properly handle the situation without insulting them the way they were insulting me? Their childish actions left me feeling depressed and mad. The United States is noted for being a globally diverse country and accepting of cultural diversity as it assimilates into their own culture. However, the way I was being treated and what I saw in the actions of my classmates turned out to be the exact opposite of this idealistic dream. I was not treated with respect at all considering that I was a new foreign student at their school. Later on, I realized that I was being ridiculed precisely because of that. I was a foreign student who could not express myself in English fluently. I came from another country whose culture and traditions these students did not understand nor respect. My family has always valued the importance of a good education. We have always emphasized reading, comprehension, and writing skills in our learning activities due to its importance in our daily lives and interaction with people. As far back as I can remember, I have always been interested in learning about anything and everything that I could see, hear, or feel. During my educational lifetime, I have met many teachers whose influence on my learning abilities have varied from positive to negative. I have had teachers who influenced and encouraged me to learn as much as I could about certain things, and I had teachers whose strictness and unfriendliness caused me to retreat from learning about certain things altogether. I believe a lot of people have the experience of ridicule at some point in their lives by people who could negatively affect their learning process. People judge and stereotype others based upon their education, property, race, and looks, making it difficult for them to control their words and deeds. My parents had been ridiculed during their time as well but they learned from those people who judged them or made fun of them. What my father taught me was that a high educational background does not mean you have everything, people will still judge you on the smallest and most immaterial reasons and concepts. However, people can know more about me from my writing. My mother taught me that education and success in life is a very important thing to achieve. Both my parents taught me how to be a person with good personal qualities and how to use the ridicule of others to my advantage. My father came from a military background family, his parents moved to Taiwan with the KMT —Chinese Nationalist Party—during the Chinese Civil War in China. Those years in Taiwan were very difficult. They didn’t bring anything from China and left their family and friends in Taiwan. They were financially strapped and had a problem putting food on the table and buying the school necessities of their children. My dad never had a brand new pair of shoes and new clothes; he always wore hand me downs from his brother. Even though they were financially lacking, the family still valued rules and etiquette. Even though they did not have a high quality of life, they wanted their children to follow the highest social standards of etiquette. That was an edict that my father took to heart and made sure that his children would also follow. For instance, we had to learn that unless our elders started eating, we could not eat yet, and we had to chew our food quietly. In that generation, wealth and social status were more important than anything else. Your high education did not matter because people respected you based on how rich you are. That is why my father did not pursue a career in the military nor pursue higher education. Instead, he worked on building his finances by working at different jobs until he came to work at an insurance company where his professional career began to flourish. He became a regional manager with over 50 subordinates, all of whom function under his guiding hand that insured a high quality of etiquette when they negotiated with others. This outlook of his helped them become the top team at their office that resulted in benefits for everyone on the team. On the other hand, my mother came from a well-educated art family. My grandfather — who has a high educational background— was a university professor and an artist. He wishes to see all of his grandchildren achieve the highest possible education either in Taiwan or anywhere in the world. My mother is a college graduate whose qualifications to work as an assistant manager in her law office were questioned by her co-workers. This drove her to go back to school to receive her master's degree when she was 38-year-olds. She successfully silenced the doubters and people began to hold her in very high regard as a person and co-worker. My father told me that I don’t need to be a straight “A” student. All that was important was that I get a college degree. He believes that etiquette and a good character are more important than a person's educational level. In the past, my father cared about my etiquette more than what grade I got at school because that was how his family used to be. On the other hand, my mother sent me to learn how to play the piano and painting. She also hired a tutor to take care of my homework when I entered the fifth grade. She did all of these because she believed that having a low degree of education makes people unworthy of the respect of others. She decided to send me to the United States to complete my university degree and build up my global perceptive. I have the same thoughts as my father, I think personality is more important but at the same time, I also agree with my mother’s point of view. I need to balance my character and education. In my learning experience, I don't have too much English writing and reading experiences in Taiwan. The school system in Taiwan focuses primarily on memorization, grammar, and vocabulary. Both our English and Chinese classes focus on grammar more than reading and writing. We have Chinese, music, history, geography, chemistry, English, PE, biology, etc. classes from 7:30 am through 9:00 pm every day. So I don't have any extra time to improve my English writing outside of school. Unfortunately, I spend pretty much the whole day in school. My point of view has changed so much since I came to the United States because of the stories of my teachers and the people I have met. I used to meet many kinds of English teachers here and have learned my English writing skills in the academic setting with them at De Anza College. Some of them were nice and taught us so much about English reading and writing. However, one of my ESL teachers likes to read our essay out and ask our classmates “do you guys understand what she/he is trying to explain? ” or “this is a sample of a fail paper.” He always makes students feel embarrassed. It’s not like I don’t want to learn English writing, but sometimes people can just be harsh and put you down easily, and makes you lose interest in learning. However, I have learned to be stronger and keep improving my English writing skills because of the ridicule that I receive from this ESL teacher or the guy who throwing paper balls at me. In conclusion, people can be judgmental and can stereotype you as a person based on what they see. But it is the personality and characteristics that are important. People can look at you in a certain way but it should not stop you from doing things that you feel are important to you. Just like me, I am not a great English writing and speaking person because I’ve been placed in a country that uses a whole different language than I am used to. People ridicule me because I am different from them but that doesn’t mean that they can stop me from learning something that I find difficult to me. What my mom and my dad taught me is that although they were confronted with obstacles, they did not let it stop them. They broke through those barriers and gained respect from others. Reference Colfer, Chris. “When people hurt you over and over, think of them like sand paper. They may scratch and hurt you a bit, but in the end, you end up polished and they end up useless.” Essay Response 1 I. The Essay: Overall focus and clarity Introduction creates interest and establishes rhetorical purpose __ The paper gives a sense of the writer’s authority (ethos) __ Development paragraphs connect to a central purpose (logos) __ Consistent analysis (so what?) connects to the central purpose (logos) __ Sources are actively set up and clearly introduced __ The paper shows audience awareness (pathos) __ Conclusion closes the circle and provides a sense of synthesis __ II. The Development: Paragraph focus and development Development paragraphs have a clear purpose __ Logical paragraph divisions __ NTO connections (coherency) __ Examples support development points __ Analysis explains what readers should understand in/from examples __ Clear connection to the main purpose of the paper? __ III. The Sentences: Style, focus, and development: Examples of sentence style and focus concerns are highlighted in light blue. A range types and lengths __ Unnecessary linking verbs and passive constructions __ Free modifiers (adverbial phrases, verbal phrases, appositives, absolutes) __ Bound modifiers (adjective and noun clauses) __ IV. Proofreading and formatting: I don't, of course, expect total perfection in this regard, but I do note patterns of errors and formatting concerns so that you can go back and work on them. (Recall that after the first essay, the amount of editing information decreases until you’re on your own....): Grammar1 ESL concerns Format conventions Run-together sentences __ Article use __ Title __ Fragments __ Transition words __ Title formats__ Verb/subject agreement __ Idiomatic usage __ Epigraph format __ Past participles __ Word forms __ Header, page # __ Tense shifts __ Count/non-count __ Quotation format ­­__ Plural endings __ Integrating quotes __ Conditional tenses __ Source citations Missing commas/CFH __ Bibliography __ Homonyms __ Possessives __ Pronoun agreement __ Spelling errors (yellow highlighting) __ Revise/see me Read More