A Title And An Intro
[This is the story behind my title and the stroy behind my year]
Nature and Nurture: An unconventional reflection on my life
Nature vs. Nurture is a question students are often forced to ponder, and debate over, when discussing issues of far too complex circumstances to be resolved in the venue of Mrs. Smith’s 10th grade English class (fictional person and place). While most choose one side or the other for the sake of not being a flip-flop, or not straddling the fence, I choose to proudly straddle and stick firmly to my guns as I earnestly state “both”! My indecision has led me to a very opinionated, strong, decision that someone’s nature, and their nurture allow them to be who they are. This topic has plagued my decisiveness for years.
As a child I was taught, through repetitive force, that I could be whatever I would like to be when I grow up. I could fly to the moon, or catch touchdown passes, or even join the miniscule, less than thriving, occupation of a superhero. My hopes were never shattered and my dreams were never harmed. Penn Charter and my suburban neighborhood were peaceful, safe places to harbor my creativity on potential. For the majority of my life, as I rarely ventured out of my protective bubble that was my life, I would have obviously stood on the nurture side of the debate. Any one could be anyone and do anything. They could all do what I was convinced I could do. That world, though fictional and completely unrealistic, was a beautiful place.
I then moved into a place of ridiculous realism and crazy conservatism. I witnessed kids on service trips who, for the most part, would never be mayors, or doctors, or even live past thirty. They had not been blessed with the life I had been given and they may never experience that life. I began to notice the world around me, as I watched relief efforts in third world countries. I noticed that my friends from the local high school wouldn’t want to go to a movie every night over summer because their parents couldn’t spend that kind of money. The situation of everyone who wasn’t like me was revealed and hit me like a brick wall. At this point in time, the nature side would have been my home. People couldn’t be turned into something they weren’t born into, and that was that.
The area which was once gray and looked down upon, the forbidden forest of this debate, if you will, is where I openly sit now. People can be helped, or even pushed, out of whatever life they’re born into, but there are limits. If you throw a dab of creativity and imagination in with a splash of level-headedness and realistic vision, you come to my opinion. It may not be a forthright opinion, in some people’s eyes, but I am confident in it and will stand strong next to it. As a more experienced, more mature young man I am happy with this outlook on life and I do not think it will change in the near future.
I have learned a lot throughout the year, and a good bit of this learning can e attributed to my block 6 English class. Stepping into the class in fall, I was positive I was thrown into a class of stereotypical troublemakers who were there so they could be monitored under the watchful eye of the “punisher” at Penn Charter. It took about a month for me to come to the realization that these troublemakers worked harder than I did, and this “punisher” was a softy of sorts. This class has taught me how to write a business letter, grammatical tricks I didn’t know, hundreds of new words, a variety of new authors who don’t bore me, but most of all it has taught me that no idea is a dumb idea. As I sat in our last double block, and listened to hypotheses about the book we read, Invisible Man, I noticed how much everyone’s different ideas could have been true. When I sat in a debate about Don Imus, or the one about a police shooting outside a New York nightclub, I realized how points made by different people pulled me in a constant tug-of-war between the topics at hand. This class has been open to viewpoints of all angles and perspectives and has not once rejected one. This class has taught me to respect opposing opinions, when in fact a part of you probably agrees with them. The most prevalent example of this comes with my classmate Chris. Before this class he was the skilled basketball player who was nothing short of hilarious, but I never saw him as a thinker. I have sat next to Chris almost every English class this year, and have noticed a habit of his. Before he proposes his theories on complex textual issues, he tends to turn to me and ask me “Does this sound stupid?” As I listen to his whispered ideas I realize how smart most of them are, and how if he had the confidence in class that he does out of the classroom he would be a fierce conversationalist in English class.
“Matt, how would you like to be kicked out of the class the first day?! Pay attention!” is what my Math teacher sternly said to me on the first day of school this year. Who was he to tell me, a fly junior, to pay attention? He’s a new teacher, he should be egging for my acceptance. My thoughts were angry and vengeful, but I just harbored them inside. This has summed up my experience with Math this year. I have had a teacher who I clash with in all ways. He is the epitome of what I don’t want to be when I grow up, and I was stuck dealing with this problem all year. I haven’t quite figured out if this has helped me grow yet or not. I want to say that it has made me a stronger person, but it hasn’t; and I want to say it has taught me to work harder, but it hasn’t. Having a teacher I dislike so much, has sparked a wanting to be a teacher inside me. As small as the desire may be, to be a teacher, and attempt to be everything this man isn’t, I could save kids from the tribulations I have been forced to deal with this year. This sounds like a slite to my teacher, but in fact it is not. Intense feelings of defeat and stress have brought me to the conclusion that students should not go through this. This is the way I have grown this year; I want to do something, when I grow up, which will prevent kids from experiencing the bad things I dealt with. I know growth comes through the good and the bad, but if I can obliterate a single hardship, even for a small group of people, than I’ll feel as if I’ve succeeded. This entire year I’ve dealt with issues of high emotion and deep seeded feelings which no teenager should deal with, in my opinion. I was a volatile person, with my lows seeming far lower than my highs. I have grown from this, and will change it for someone in the future.
This project was a success. I have no other way of putting it, and can think of no better way to describe it. It was a little unorganized, but it still made me think of myself. I rarely like the attention being on me, as odd as that may sound, but with this project I was forced to focus on me and just me. This project was a success.