Friday, August 28, 2015
No "Self Respecting" AP student would skip the first Blog!
Read the essay On Self Respect by Joan Didion. React/respond to this essay on a personal level. Do you agree/disagree – approve/disapprove of her interpretation of self-respect? As an aside, also comment on the schools new honor's policy. Do you agree or disagree with the new policy. Explain.
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I believe that self respect is like any other form of respect: you have to earn it. I think this essay was beautifully written because, in a way, everyone can relate to it on a personal note. Every single person on planet earth has at one point or another given into temptation, or sloth, or has lost hope in themselves rather than respecting the person they were becoming. I, for one, am more than guilty of this.
ReplyDeleteI never liked myself, not growing up, not really that much now. However, as I grow older I start to ask myself, "What is it that I don't exactly like?" Then, after reading this essay, I realized that it was not a case of me not liking myself, it was a case of me not having respect for the person I was/am. It is that I do not enjoy the way I did anything and I knew a lot of people did not respect me, so I chose to go off of their opinions rather than my own.
As I started to think clearly, however, I realized that I like the person I am becoming. I am starting to have the respect for myself that I desperately needed. I realized that it will be okay if other people do not like me, as long as I keep myself to the high standards I have.
Even though the honor code discussion is a side note, I believe that it ties into the self respect factor. I personally love the idea that people have to be accountable for their own work, rather than stealing it from someone else. I know that this example is going to be used a lot, but two years ago in chemistry still fires me right up because people who were cheating and did not know the meaning of self respect were getting higher grades than I was, as I actually worked my tail off to learn. This shows not only the lack of self respect that the people who cheated had, but it shows the self respect that I have to go on and do my own thing. The honor system asks us now to finally do the work that we are asked to do, as well as be loyal for the education our families are selling an arm and a leg for.
This essay was beautifully written and I think that it gave me the ability to think about how much I respect myself and others. It's like, for the first time, I earned the respect I was looking for and I did not need to look for it in anyone but myself. Self respect is a tricky thing, but the realization of you having it is actually relieving.
Jenna, I think the fact that you are realizing the approval of others should not influence the way you view yourself is awesome. This just shows that the self-respect you are developing is genuine. It is a great feeling when you begin to respect yourself and the person you are becoming. I know that, for me, there was a certain point when I stopped looking for the approval of other people, and I started focusing on developing my own character. I felt so much better about myself because I was really starting to realize the person I wanted to be. I finally started respecting myself. Hopefully, everyone will eventually reach that point. It is important to avoid adopting other people's views as your own, especially when it comes to yourself.
DeleteThat is wonderful that you are realizing how important you are, Jenna. It is so hard for a person to respect them self when other people are not respecting them but instead critiquing them to make them the same as everyone else. Chemistry was hard because that was something I was okay at and it felt like people were stealing my strong point when they all had their own. There are no cheat codes to buy that will make me faster, more aggressive, or a better athlete, but those who were good at other things and needed to be better at chemistry disrespected themselves with the use of cheating.
DeleteOne of my biggest weaknesses is my lack of confidence. We had international soccer coaches teach us for a week at the beginning of August and when evaluating me at the end of only three days, they made a comment on it. It is noticeable when I say that I am not the best at soccer, art, English, or math. Reading this essay made me realize how important self respect is, however, because I noticed that self respect is contagious. I might not be the best at somethings, but what I do, I need to put all my effort into. I respect myself most when I am not comparing myself to others, and I now realize that I do not have the same talents as other people. I, like many others, struggle with my self respect and need to remind myself that a fault like this can lead to much bigger issues if not attended to.
ReplyDeleteSelf respect has a lot to do with acceptance, which is where the honor code was tweaked. People plagiarize and cheat when they feel the need to be better than they are in school, which is sad. They do not realize that their talents are not writing or taking tests. They do not respect themselves at all and accept cheating as a confidence boost instead of the wonderful alternative of strengthening their weaknesses. The code is a great idea because it will force students to strip down to their genuine talents and use them to get them through their schoolwork instead of using someone else's to "show the teacher what they want to see." They can no longer hide behind other people and get away with a lack of self respect. In this way, a student's talents will be discovered, leading to self respect, or they will become better at another aspect of school, both being positive outcomes. The way Joan Didion depicted self respect while using metaphors and imagery made me imagine its horrific effects. Didion and I believe that when someone commits a harmful act, they must have self respect to own up to it and stop making excuses. The honors code as a strict new policy will strengthen this practice.
The new school rules in the honors policy and the curriculum in general are heading in a positive direction. Self respect will be an issue while discovering differences in talent among classmates, but once everyone is strong enough to obtain the perfect mixture of confidence and humbleness, the school will be a great learning atmosphere.
I also agree with Didion that one aspect of self-respect is owning up to one's mistakes. By admitting to wrongdoings, one exhibits a great sense of character and self-respect, because they are communicating that they are honest and genuine rather than hiding behind a facade of perfection. One person who is remarkably good at this is my mom. Each time we find ourselves in an argument, my mom is always the first one to admit her mistakes. Many people have an incredibly hard time doing this - myself included. But by acknowledging that we are not perfect, we exhibit not only self-respect, but respect for other people as well.
DeleteIt seems to me that self-respect is a topic that is rarely discussed these days, probably due to the fact that it is often confused with arrogance or conceit. I, like so many others, have always had a particular lack of confidence that was evident in the way I spoke about myself. I found it hard to believe that I could really be good at anything, probably because I was involved in activities that kept me from discovering my true talents and passions. (For example, I spent so much time working on my jump shot, that I rarely found the time to work on the novel I had been wanting to write.) But even as I grew older, and my self-confidence began to grow, I still did not respect myself. Each time I would be given a compliment, I would immediately put up a wall and disagree with whatever it was that person was complimenting me on. This was because I had never spent very much time building up that sense of self-respect. Didion touches on the fact that self-respect is a mental habit, something that one must develop. Because I was under the impression that respecting and appreciating oneself made one seem prideful and arrogant, I had never taken the time to develop this mentality. In a sense, I was worried about developing a bad character. But what I did not understand is that self-respect is perhaps one of the most crucial aspects involved in building character.
ReplyDeleteSince I was a freshman, I have been a presenter for the Family Honor program. This program is respect-oriented, both for one's family as well as for oneself. One of the topics presented at the program is true worth. Basically, this means that each and every human being has been given an incredible sense of worth from God the moment of conception, and this worth cannot falter, regardless of where one ends up along the journey of life. Each time I witness this segment of the program, I feel an incredible sense of worth that is almost foreign to me, because I am so used to viewing myself in such a poor way. But this is not what God wants for His children. Of course, it is important that one avoid being too confident. However, at the same time, we must all become aware of this amazing worth that we have been given, and not only develop self-confidence, but self-respect as well. In her essay, Didion states that self-respect should not be influenced by the approval of others, and with this I would have to agree. Rather, self-respect should be developed as one recognizes their true worth, and works to develop themselves in a way that allows them to maintain the respect they have for themselves.
Additionally, I think that the school's new honor policy can be tied into the topic of self-respect. As a student, I have witnessed plagiarism and cheating quite often. As Didion stated, self-respect and character go hand-in-hand, and I think it is safe to say that dishonesty is a poor way to build ones character. I believe that the new honor code will ultimately leave students with a sense of accomplishment, as their work will be originally theirs. That way, students will not only commend themselves, but they will respect themselves as well.
I love the reference you made to basketball, Mary. It seems as if being an outstanding athlete is the only way to come across as being talented when in reality, a person is never going to find their talents and self respect if they are looking in the wrong place. Like I mentioned in my blog, self respect comes only when accepting your own individual person and only when the comparisons between yourself and others stops. Since so many people in this county are great athletes, that is what everyone considers the norm and that is what others try to be good at. It is hard to be abnormal but once a person learns to appreciate their own talents, they do not seem so out of the loop.
DeleteAs Grace Bobby pointed out, the basketball reference was awesome. Not everyone can hit a jump shot every single time like...Lebron...ugh....the thought of him makes me want to vomit. Anyway, As Albert Einstein (aka The Man) said, "If you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it'll live its whole life believing it is pretty stupid." I firmly believe that at heart. If you don't want to play basketball, don't play basketball. If you don't want to hang with Stan at Track, well then Don't do that. Searching for our true passions is what high school is about. So I'm glad you've found something you truly enjoy, and it makes you feel good about yourself.
DeleteI absolutely loved this article because it put words to many ideas that people already think about . I have gone through many rough patches in my life where I had virtually no self respect for myself. One fateful day, I took a look at myself and the things I was doing in my life and literally thought, “You idiot, what are you wasting your life doing”. After this point, I was able to cut those poisonous things out of my life, gain back my own self respect, and move forward. I know that there is not one teenager out who has never hated themselves. It's part of growing up. You have to figure out what you don't want to be in order to figure out who you are.
ReplyDeleteWith the installation of social media, I think self respect is at an all time time. It is virtually impossible for teenagers not to hate themselves because no matter what they do or how they look, there will always be someone better, smarter, skinnier, and prettier. I think the moment that teens can put this behind them and stop looking for others validation and once they can learn that only their own self image maters, they have truly grown up. If they are able to be confident in their own skin and respect themselves, they can accomplish much more in life than if they only cared what other people said about them. Why does it matter what other people think? Honestly, it doesn't, but so many people let their own self respect get trumped by social views and views of people around them.
I think the new school policy is great. It eliminates any chance of people being able to cheat. This also decreases the amount of people that are going to feel guilty about handing in a paper that has been copied or not up to par. I have given into the temptation of cheating on a select few occasions in high school. There were nights where I was so tired I could barely function and instead of doing he honorable thing, I cheated. I felt horrible about it for weeks. The new policy saves students fro feeling this way about themselves and opens up more opportunities to grow and learn.
I like how pointed out that in order to discover what you want to be, you have to figure out what you don't want to be. This part of self discovery often leads people to make important decisions about their lives. People who want to be happy cut ties to everything that weighed them down in order to become who they want to be. This process is also utilized when making decisions about the future. I know that I personally used this when I decided what career I wanted to pursue. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I decided that there was a lengthy list of things I didn't want to do. This process also helps people gain a better understanding of their values.
DeleteSocial media is a really great thing. It has really globalized the world, which is an awesome thing. But there is also the negative aspect of social media. I feel in some cases, people would be better off without it, because there are constantly stories in the news about how some kid was driven to suicide because of social media. It's just really sad. I think what you said is so true about teens just needing to stop caring. It really takes a whole lot of maturity to just stop caring what the outside world says. And it is very difficult. the cure to this problem seems to be increasing self respect. Once self respect is increased, these things just don't bother people on such a deep level anymore
DeleteYou are right, Abbey, social media really makes today's generation need a much deeper root for their self respect in order to prevent it from being uprooted. Absolutely no one wins. The internet trolls are everywhere. Where one girl is looking at a thin model on a runway, a thin girl is looking at the skinny shaming comments from plus size empowerment supporters who have a skewed perception that empowerment means putting down those who do not match them. It is honestly crazy and out of hand. But, hey you win some, you lose some.
DeleteSelf respect...self respect...self respect...this topic seems so foreign because I pretty much never think about it. I don't know how many people sit around just thinking of self respect, but I am not one of them. Early on in my life (and today still...), I struggled with self respect. Back in the wonderful days of middle school, I was kind of a jerk. I didn't really respect anyone. So I don't know if I even knew how to respect myself, since I didn't respect anyone else. Fast forward 5-6 years, and I actually have respect for other people. I'd like to think I'm not a jerk anymore, but that's probably not true. I think even though I started respecting others, it took a long time for me to start respecting myself. There were so many dreams, aspirations, and opportunities that either aren't going to happen, or I just missed. Oh well, it happens. I know my dream back when I was like in fifth grade was to be the next Lawrence of Arabia. Years later, I said to myself, "Well, shucks. There's not a job out there to be Lawrence of Arabia. And I only know English. This guy I want to become knew four languages. So...I guess I'll have to scrap that dream." So I did scrap that dream. Kinda sucked. I know that was impractical, but I really wanted to do that. Maybe a more practical and relevant example was when I finally quit Spanish. I wanted to go all the way to Spanish V and become a Spanish genius. But I succumbed to sloth (another problem of mine), and I ended up stopping after Spanish III. To this day I still struggle with accepting the decisions I made, and I still pretty much kick myself over the dumbest ones (like I had a chance to move London a few years back, but I turned that down.). But I have started to try to put them in the rear view mirror, and just accept that I am who I am and I have done what I have done. As the essay mentioned, self respect is not gifted, it is acquired.
ReplyDeleteThe new honor policy I think is a step in the right direction for ECC. Standing by and letting all the cheaters keep cheating just seemed dumb. Maybe the worst class I was ever a part of in terms of cheating and Chemistry. I didn't exactly sit with the greatest people, and I fell into the temptation of cheating to actually get a better grade. That was an awful decision on my part. First of all, I felt guilty. So I told Mondo and she appreciated my honesty, but I got a zero on the tests I cheated on. That kind of sucked. But I still passed Chemistry, and then for some reason, I was accepted to AP Chemistry. Then second of all, I didn't know what was going on in AP Chemistry. So it took a whole lot of studying and khan academy to get my chemistry understanding back to acceptable parameters. But in more general terms, it is kind of dumb how students could just copy and paste paragraphs off of Wikipedia to write their essays. I think that is a little bit...not good. The students that are involved in this cheating, will not know how to do basic things like a write an essay or in my case, solve a chemistry problem. So it may get uglier before it gets better, but I think eventually ECC will be better off having instituted this new honor policy and Turn it in.
I agree that chemistry was a terrible class because of the amount of cheating that was present. In fact that was one of the reasons I decided not to take AP Chemistry; I could not tolerate a class were cheating was commonplace. The new honor policy will restore the integrity of this course by ensuring that plagiarizing and cheating are dealt with properly. I also agree that the situation will get worse before it gets better. Many students will not believe that they will be caught, and continue plagiarizing. However I believe that before the end of the year, the academic integrity of written papers will be restored. As academic integrity improves, students should realize how much better they will do if they actually write their own papers. The only person they hurt when they plagiarize is themselves and now they cannot do so.
DeleteGizzy, I think you brought up an interesting point. If we don't respect other people, we really don't respect ourselves. If we did, we wouldn't be so insecure to disrespect other people. I think middle school is a horrible time for everyone (you don't hear very many people talking about how much they liked middle school), and we go through some rough times to get to where we are today. It takes a lot of trial and error and we all make mistakes. The most important thing I learned in middle school was to value other people. At this point, I can look at someone and see that they aren't really that different from myself. Right now, we are all just a bunch of messed up high schoolers that have no idea what we want to do with our lives, but we would never be where we are without the past.
DeleteIt was very noble of you, Nick, that you not only took it upon yourself to quit doing a wrong action, but you took responsibility for your mistakes and accepted the concequences. It is sad most other students never felt that guilt. I remember students bluntly stating how they got an "A" in chemistry all because they cheated on the tests. I would always get frustrated because I struggled so hard with chemsistry, but I gave it my honest effort and took a worse grade instead of taking the easy way out. It amazed me even more how some of these students were aspiring to be different types of doctors. If they could not pass a high school chemistry class without cheating, I do not even want to imagine how their college chemistry classes go. Yikes!
DeleteThis article gave a realistic description of self respect. The author describes self respect by illustrating what occurs when one has no self respect, a situation that many readers identify with. Almost everyone can recall a night when they laid awake in bed, recalling every moment that embarrassed them in their entire lives. In addition, the author uses the past culture's strength of character as a way to show the present culture's weakness. Self respect in the present is often never displayed, as it can be interpreted as arrogance or vanity. In the past, it was a form of strength that helped people endure though situations and handle them with grace.
ReplyDeleteMany youth lack self respect. Young people are often afraid to praise themselves for fear of the ensuing gossip. A young woman who says she is beautiful will be gossiped about by her peers as vain or conceited. A basketball player who says he is great will be labelled arrogant or as a show off. Instead of admitting their abilities, they cower behind their insecurities. They may even go so far as to create false images of themselves that have more faults than their true self. This mindset is unhealthy and exemplifies self disrespect. Self respect can be externalized in a positive manner when one stays humble. A humble attitude ensures that others do not mistake confidence for cockiness.
Self respect is not entirely about others' opinion. This quality helps create confidence and peace of mind that are critical to inner strength. Joan Didion exemplifies this concept using the colonization of the West. During this time period, people had incredible composure during trials. They were confident in their abilities and knew they would persevere. This inner strength had nothing to do with the opinions of others. Instead of worrying how others would feel about them, they accepted themselves in a way that enables them to live with themselves.
The school's new honor policy will help students rely on themselves instead of worrying about the criticism of others. It will be a difficult transition, but it will have wonderful results. Students will have more integrity and accountability concerning their work. Written work is an expression of the self, and as such should be honestly authored.
Ashley, I agree that this essay is so well written because he relates to his audience by means of telling about times where he had no self respect. We are too afraid to feel accomplished and, quite frankly, it is an awful thing. I think that we should be able to walk around and scream at the top of our lungs, "You know what? I'm really smart and I can do this." Rather than playing dumb to give into societies pressures.
DeleteThere are two type or people. Those who have struggled with self respect, and those who are liars. My personal downfall with self respect began in high school when I realized I am much smaller than my classmates. I remember back to being a young and innocent younger version of myself when my growth specialist told me there was nothing more they could do to help my height because my bones had no room left to permit growth. I thought it was awesome I was going to be tiny forever. In fact, sometimes I even yelled at my parents for taking me in my even younger years when I stopped growing at only four feet tall. Along with my short height attributing to my younger look is my weight, and sadly logging onto Facebook to read how curves are for men and bones are for dogs did not help much. No big event really happened to make me begin appreciating being tiny again. One day I was pretty much just like well my taller friends have trouble fitting in the back seats of cars and here I am casually cruising around in my motorized car made for children, so who is the real winner?
ReplyDeleteThe new honor code at ECCHS is amazing, and I am astonished it took this long to establish. Students plagiarizing is their own growth impediment. Instead of allowing their knowledge to grow to new heights, they sell themselves short and try to have someone else lift them, but you can only sit on someone's shoulders for so long before they cannot hold you up anymore. Now, everyone is going to have to stand on their own, and although it may be rough at first, there is going to be so much more diversity. Everyone's mind has its own beautiful uniqueness, and now the school will not be cheated of seeing it, and those students will not be cheated of not developing it. It is an insult to oneself to sell oneself short.
I already replied to 2 blogs but I LOVE THIS!! It is so true that everyone struggles with self respect, especially girls when looking at their body image. Also, the way you wrote about the honors code while including your newly appreciated confidence was ingenious! Oh my gosh I just love this blog!
DeleteLauren, I really enjoyed reading this blog because you looked at things in such a unique way. I hate the way society makes virtually everyone hate themselves. Growing up sucked for me because I was always so confused because of this new image that was given to me. I wasn't the tall, skinny girl that I was told boys wanted. It took me a long time to become comfortable around other people because I was always so self conscious about how I looked. I think social media just makes everything horrible for everybody because we are virtually letting people control our own happiness.
DeleteLauren, I love this. I think that self respect has so much to do with how we see ourselves. So often (too often, actually), we find ourselves falling victim to other people putting us down. We need to find ourselves and whether it takes a huge life changing experience or simply waking up one morning and choosing to love/ respect ourselves. I am also really in love with the analogy that you used to establish your point about the honor system. It just tied the whole blog together and it was really well done.
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