My name is Nathaniel Green, a junior, Political Science major from Washington DC. My Bonner Community Service is Raising Expectations. I love teaching and mentoring young people not just for a quick hot second but for years.
Question: We are all leaders and all great leaders have been vulnerable and made mistakes. Describe a time where you made a mistake. How did you recover from that mistake? How did you ensure that you did not make the same mistake twice?
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When I was 7 years old I was with my family on a metro train in Washington D.C. To keep myself entertained I was sitting down playing my PSP(playstation portable). While I was so focused on the game there was a pregnant lady who walked on the train who was also holding her other baby in her arms. It caught my eye but I was still focused on the game. My father told me to pause the game and look up at him. He told me whenever you see a woman without a seat you always offer yours. I offered my seat to her and her kids and she had the biggest grin on her face. It made me happy to see her with a look of hope and gratitude. My mistake was being so focused on the game that I did not fully recognize my surroundings and someone who was in need of help. I recovered from that mistake by fixing it at that very moment. I will never make that mistake again because now I am older and wiser. Every time I see a woman and all of the seats in an area are gone I automatically get up and offer it to them because if that was my mother or grandmother I would want someone to do the same.
A time in which I made a mistake was when in the sixth grade. I was in English class taking a quiz and the teacher was outside on the phone talking. My seat partner and I decided it would be nice to pass notes during the test. We were so focused on the note that we forgot about our test. After I said some disturbing comments, she called me the n-word. Feeling angry I called her the b-word and then she slapped me. The teacher saw her slap me and immediately pulled her out the class and sent her to the office. She asked for my account of what happened and I lied to keep me looking as the victim. Unfortunately, she got all the blame and was suspended because of my retaliation. It surprised me that she didn't tell on me and made me feel ashamed. That experience taught me two things. One, to never call a female out of her name no matter reason. Men are supposed to respect women at all costs. The second lesson I learned was to always do right no matter if it puts you in deeper consequences.
During my sophomore year, I had a teacher who would give his students a quiz that was not worth a lot at the beginning of each class. I had him first period, and all my so-called friends had him after me. In the beginning...like when he just started doing the quizzes, we all realized that it was the same quiz for all the classes. The quiz would be based on the reading we were assigned the night or week before. So one day, I took the test and got a good score; by my next period, everybody was panicking because they were positive that they were going to fail the test. Before, students who took the test would be able to look at the answers and their test score, but sometimes the teacher would lock the test to prevent cheating. My teacher did not lock the test ever, so I went on my laptop during my 2nd period and screenshot every answer and sent it to other students, also I sent it using my personal email(sigh*). NO LIE! the same day everybody complaining and getting mad at me because they said the answers were not correct, so for anybody that followed my screenshot got a bad grade. Now, the same day, I didn't know how but my teacher found out it was me. Some say that students left their laptops with my email open, and he would just creep around and he saw my name on the email address and others said that my name was shouted out during class because of frustration(frustrated by a failed quiz). At the time I was in the IB program, so the conversation between me and my teacher was mostly threats about him getting me kicked out... moral of the conversation was not to do it again, and he found out people were cheating because the class overall grade for each class would slowly increase throughout the day so it seemed suspicious. Anyway, I got in trouble, and that was my mistake. At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing because grades were everything in high school so I wanted to help, BUT, I still managed to get caught because other students told because I did not deliver?! After that, I never did anything like that or had put someone in that position. If I am not prepared for an upcoming quiz or test; it is my fault, and I hope the other students learned the same thing. Furthermore, I learned that I cannot make these sacrifices for those who would just sell me out in a day, I was trying to help and at the end of the day; I was the one who would have the opportunity to take rigorous classes that would be good for my future taken away. This one mistake alone made me realized that this was a chain reaction of mistakes by sitting back and observing the whole situation. I had seen that these sacrifices that I make cannot just be for anybody, no matter how small it may be... I can only make the same mistake twice if it is for someone that I know for sure is a love one or someone I know/consider family.
While holding the position of President of my school’s chapter of the National Honor Society, I was in charge of the annual World Food Festival held at my school. Multiple meetings were ran to secure logistics for the fest and ensurance of everything running smoothly. During one of the meetings, we discussed the different countries that would be included in the fest and a member of the board made a racist comment about a country and ethnicity that caused some turmoil that I was oblivious of. I did not even give the comment any afterthought. This mistake caused my leadership skills to be questioned due to the fact that I did not take the initiative to intervene in the situation. My ignorance to the situation required me to go to the people that were offended and make sure everything was okay. After this situation, I knew I had to be consistently cognisant of what is said during a meeting or event and to ensure that it would not happen again I scheduled an ethnicity vs. race workshop that exposed myself and my fellow members to what to be mindful of when interacting with others of different ethnicities. Due to this, I assured that that mistake would not be made again.
I try to tell myself that everyone makes mistakes in hopes that it will somehow make a lot of my unforgettable mistakes slightly more forgettable. But the one mistake that I made many years ago still slightly haunts me to this day. It all started in my 6th grade class at Bridgeport elementary school. I remember it was a cloudy but sunny day in February. We were all doing our morning review of the lessons we’d learned the day before but not soon after we as a class started our review my teacher stopped the class. To introduce the newest student from another district named Calvin. But as soon as Calvin could walk into the door, one of my classmates called him a “bad name” and everyone started to laugh including myself because I didn’t know any better. And shortly after walking in, Calvin ( after being laughed at by everyone on his first day in a new school) sat alone in the corner while the class continued to make fun of Calvin until lunchtime. Even though, I don’t exactly know what was going through my 12 year old mind. I knew that the new kid needed a friend so after getting my lunch I walked over to Calvin’s empty table in the lunchroom and introduced myself. While ensuring that no matter what the majority I will never judge a book by it cover and will always (in the best of my ability) be a friend first because as people we often forget how important it is to be kind to each other.
( Jahi Flowers)
When I think of mistakes, I never dwell on the negative aspects of them because I seem them as learning experiences for future projects or engagements. Nevertheless, a mistake that I made was recent as I held the President position of my schools community service program called F.O.C.U.S, Fundamentally Organizing Cultivating An Urban Society, and I was in charge of our annual, important fundraiser BlackOut Dance to bring funds towards our organization, but I consistently forgot to give the dance publicity and to contact various individuals to assist in making the dance exactly what we envisioned. As my memory continuiously failed me, our sponsor hounded me constantly to make this dance memorable, but with my hectic scheduele with AP classes and a countless amount of activities I was apart of, being focused on the dance wasn't my first priority at the time. Weeks passed by and the dance is right around the corner and many assets to the dances are missing and it was my responsibilty to handle those task so our sponsor was aggrevated with me for not getting the job done in a timely fashion. I soon realized that overwhelming myself with multiple tasks all at once isn't healthy and can cause things to fall in between the cracks. Once the dance came, I managed to receive assistance on the tasks assigned to me and they were accomplished in enough time to have a successful BlackOut dance. As I progress through my everyday life I make it imperative to myself not to overtask my scheduele or to tackle many projects all at once without any assistance. Having that stressful experience from making those forgetful, but also overwhelming mistakes towards the BlackOut dance helped me realize these helpful tips.
I used to be the kind of person that had to have everything done my way. I wouldn’t listen to the ideas of others or even give people a chance to critique my work. I labeled myself a perfectionist, but looking back I should have labeled myself vacuous. I remember working on a group project where the objective was to create a music video that told a story. Of course, I chose the song and told everyone what their role was in the project. I honestly thought I was doing the right thing by taking action, but what I failed to realize was that I had taken every person in that group’s voice. The outcome of this project was a lackluster video with probably three different kinds of shots and a typical story. Watching it I started to wish I had used the ideas of my team and by that time it was too late. After recognizing what I had done I apologized to them all for not being considerate and not an actual member of the group. Today I make sure that instead of trying to be a leader I am a member first. I’m working on being receptive so that I don’t make this same mistake. I know now that things come together when there is a collective behind it that works together for the common interest.
A life lesson is to learn from the mistakes you make in the past. 9th grade year mistakes[ ruined a promising 9th grade campaign. The biggest mistake I made was being focused on the wrong thing. I was so focused on social life and basketball that my grades started to tank. I never listen to anyone my 9th grade year. I thought I had everything figure out and didn't need any support. Well that was a mistake. I ended freshman year with a 2.3 and didn't mature as a man. To recover from this mistake I started to become a more way well rounded as a student athlete, started to gain mentors that knew more than me, and took my grades more seriously. I ended up graduating with over a 3.0, and one of the most well rounded students at my high school. I figured out not to listen and become interested in any other things than one thing. Thats how I overcame this mistake.
My name is Gregory Bell, I am a incoming business finance major. Through life, I have come up against many obstacles that have allowed me to grow as a person. One of my most challenging obstacles was moving from Tallahassee Florida to Atlanta. I moved during the start of my Junior year about 4 days before school started. During the first couple of days of school, I didn't know anyone. On top of that, I was taking my hardest classes to date. After the first week, I understood I had two options. I could be sad and not talk to anyone in my new surrounding, or I could learn to become more social and build relationships with others. My first year I kept to myself and struggled in silence. Not only was this year one of the most challenging mentally my physical fitness also suffered. My 12th-grade year I decided to go out and be more sociable with my peers. Through becoming more social I was able to make it through a difficult year with support from a group of my peers. Even though it isn’t started senior year to me was most challenging balancing college applications, school work, and other activities. Through becoming more social I was able to reach out to my peers and find best practices.
My sophomore year of high school was undoubtedly the most difficult time in my life. I was struggling between rectifying my gpa from freshman year and recovering from missing nearly two months of school due to back surgery on account of the scoliosis I used to have. During that time period I feel is when I grew the most. I had to learn to distinguish my friends from my peers and realize who would really be there for me when my back is again not the wall. Most importantly I had to maintain a solid state of academic achievement despite being out of school for about 60 days. As I look back on this moment, it had to happen. If it weren’t for me getting that surgery and experiencing the latter , I would have never grown from it and progressed into the man the I am today.
While growing up, I have been a bystander in many incidents that I believe I could have possibly stopped. It seems like I have always had an influence on the people that surrounded me, meaning things I said or did could possibly dictate what their actions would be. For example, I have made mistakes by not interfering with some altercations that I could have easily desecalated, that led into things much more serious. Now I tend to step in when I can, not just being in everybody’s business, but I grew into a man who doesn’t take joy in drama nor disasters.
Neither of my parents are the most expressive people in the world, it seems that no matter what I do I can't quite get them to keep any sort of emotion for more than a few hours before returning to their state of uncomfortable indifference. Even in elementary school when I was able to secure a majority of "4"s I would receive menial praise before going on to discuss why it is I have 3 in Music. This continued into middle school before finally they both just accepted whatever grades were posted on the paper, and any discussions about areas of improvement lasted the time it took us to walk to the car.
Up until my junior year I had done fairly well for myself, my GPA had never fallen before a 3.0 and I had exactly one C on my transcript. It could have been the delirium from the amount of the writing and test taking required of us during our Junior year, or possibly just a moment of scientific curiosity, regardless, I got it in my head to intentionally do no homework for an entire semester. Needless to say, it didn't end very well for me.
I still did all my classwork, and I took the test and quizzes but anything that was assigned to be done out of class lived in my backpack. My teachers were baffled because I was one of the students who conceptually understood everything they were teaching, and even had discussions before or after class about their lectures but would not turn in any homework. Our parent teacher conferences came near the end of the semester and like always my teachers spoke about what a pleasure I was to have in class, but this time the discussion took a turn when it came to my grades, they would all say that they I knew I was better than what was on the paper and my parents stood by in relative silence. After I had met with all my teachers we left and the only comment that was made was by my mother. She simply told me that I was “better than that.” Afterwards I saw no point in continuing the experiment and worked tirelessly to improve what grades I could before they were finalized in December. I didn’t fail any classes but my GPA did suffer, I ended with just under a 2.5 for my first semester Junior year. I wasn’t thinking about college applications or my future at all when I made those choices, I was frustrated and jealous that I had friends whose parents would seemingly throw celebration if they were able to get a “B” in a math class or would take the time to stand over their kid and watch them do their homework if they got a bad grade on one physics test.
Through all of this I learned that the most important motivation will always come from within, that everything you do has to ultimately be for yourself or else you will never be satisfied. I couldn’t fix what I had already done but I did work to improve my grades moving forward. I met with teachers about what I could do differently, I attended office hours, and tutoring sessions, and completely changed from a passive student coasting by on my ability to memorize and take tests, to an active student doing their best in every part of my academic life.
(Dre’Quan Chisholm) One of the biggest mistakes i made was being dishonest with my mother. When I was 10 years-old I created a Yahoo email account by being dishonest about my age so I can created a Facebook account. Before I created the account I asked my mother for permission but she said no. One day I was using our home computer and my mom came and said she needed it. I did not have time to close the window so when she opened the tab she saw my Facebook and email account. When she asked about it I lied and denied that it was mine. I finally confessed after an hour of questioning. I ended up getting a whooping with three belts because I told three lies. So the way I recovered from my mistake was by admitting my mistake. The way I prevented this mistake from reoccurring was by respecting what she says and keeping an open line of honest communication.
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