Introduction
Expect to fail this year. 4th grade was last year; you are now in 5th grade, and every single one of us will fail, and most of us will fail almost daily.
Failure is a critical part of the learning process, and how your brain works. Think about when you learned to ride a bike, or land a soccer ball between the goal posts; you failed, often many times, before you became successful. You didn’t give up, you didn’t give in and you became successful. Your brain, if you let it, can take failure and turn it in to success.
Unfortunately, many students in Lakewood do not know that failure is one of the steps to success. Lakewood High School has an extraordinarily high failure (drop out) rate when compared to other schools in our immediate area. Specifically, nearly 30% of Lakewood’s public school students will drop out before graduation, compared to 4% In Howell or Jackson, mere miles away. Sadly, this failure has a lifelong impact on both the students dropping out and the community itself. For most, failure to graduate from high school results in lower-paying jobs and less job security in the future. This is turn results in higher poverty levels, and more difficult lives for each and every day they are lived.
What can you do to improve this failure or drop-out rate at Lakewood High School, and create a more successful Clifton Avenue school?
Task
You will research the brain, the importance of goal setting and how we learn. You will use that information to answer two extended constructive response questions, and to create a personal narrative discussing a time you failed, and learned to succeed!