There are many important and influential people, places, or even things that assisted in getting your education. Education is an important part of a kid’s knowledge and skills. It is more than just learning from textbooks. It is an effort of the older generation to transfer their knowledge to their children. Our world is really changing and developing so it is very important to teach and bring up intelligent people who could understand the problems of society and solve them in a proper way.

I have a couple of important things that has pushed me during my educational experiences. One of those experiences were my teachers always pushed me to do better in all my classes. Something I’ll never forget when my 8th grade teacher named Ms. Phillips, told me that “A gift of knowledge can bring us to the top of our dreams. It leads us to the right path and gives us a chance to have a wonderful life.” At first I was puzzled by what she told me, it took me until I was a senior in Highschool to really understand what she meant by this. My dad is also a huge factor towards my education. He always stayed on me about my grades, if i didn’t have good grades I would be in big trouble. Knowing that I would be in trouble made me push harder to get my grades up, even though I was terrified of my dad at the same time. Now that I’m older, I understand why my dad was pushing me so hard in football and school.

Your Professor is one of the most important people to help you succeed in college. Soon I figured out that knowing your professor and participating in class can be a big advantage in helping yourself in a certain class. Coming to Wofford early helped me learn that when professors see you paying attention and asking questions, they are willing to help you more. Engaging in class discussion may even make up part of your grade. Raising your hand helps the professor get to know you but also you should take advantage of office hours. Also, I believe sharing your study habits with your professor can be helpful towards your grade. Doing this is helpful because the professor can give you tips on how to study.

Your classmates may be among the most important people to help you succeed in college also. If you have been going to class and then going home or to work without connecting with your classmates, you are missing a very important source. I also researched that students who are in study groups do better because they are pulling their knowledge and understanding. I’ve also had the experience of being in study groups, when I was in these study groups they sure improved my grade by a bunch. Even though some people are not friendly and don’t really like to talk, I still believe that you should get in study groups to benefit yourself.

Since I’ve been in college my coach Dan Romero has been such a huge help towards my education also. On the field and off the field, he has been a huge mentor to me since the day I got here. Coach Romero always checks on my grades, wellness, and family. He encourages me everyday to do as he says “the right things even when no one’s looking.” The reason why he reminds me of my dad so much is because he always used to urge me to do the right things. I believe this will stick with me for the rest of my life. Hopefully, one day if I have children I can reiterate this into them. He also graduated from here so he has a history with the school, and some of the professors. Coach Romero was a student athlete here too so he understands the time and effort we put in towards our education. All he does is try to be helpful in anyway he can and I respect him for that. Sometimes we as teenagers do dumb stuff and don’t listen until something comes up bad. Then we try to change our ways, coach has been very patient with me as I’ve did dumb things and haven’t listened. All of these factors have been very important towards my education and I believe that’s what got me in the position I’m in today. After reading White Fragility, the book taught me how many people can perceive you off your actions or even the way you dress.White Fragility aims to do exactly what its subtitle says; to explain why white people find it so difficult to talk about racism, particularly within an American context. The answers are surprisingly complicated and illuminating, as they tie together some of the darkest strands of American history. White fragility involves both a misunderstanding and a denial of the true nature of racism in American society. This misunderstanding and denial both reinforce that racism and grow out of it. Thus, to understand white fragility, we must first understand racism, which, in turn, requires us to understand race. These books have really taught me a lot about life and has shown me how people can think a certain way about you and you do not even know.In whistling Vivaldi, Claude Steele experienced many Stereotypes during his lifetime. For example,Vivaldi says “If I joined the caravan and went to the pool on Wednesday afternoons then I got in; if I went to the pool at any other time, I didn’t get in.”(2)

This quote shows how even at an early age kids still can still judge you. Earlier in the book it said that the narrator barfed in the circle that the students were in. The narrator couldn’t even read well yet and could already understand that they were getting judged. Being judged can make you question yourself and wonder if anything you do, people will question and judge you.

Stereotypes can affect some people in a big way, such as when you judge a person and the person hears it can be stuck with them for life.The author said “that was my introduction to schooling”, I think the author went through a situation where he was stereotyped. He went through an early stage of being stereotyped, I was in middle school when I first got stereotyped. I was in the eighth grade when I figured out that someone stereotyped me. I had earrings in my ear and wore different clothes and didn’t get every shoes like the people at my school. I wore the same shoes maybe 3 days in a row, and I overheard someone tell their friend in my class say “He always wearing those shoes”. In this book, Steele was about 7 or 8 years old when he first figured out that he was black. Even at an early age he discovered the stereotypes that were against black people, such as they couldn’t swim because of the history with slave ships. Even if they did want to swim it could only be on Wednesday. Black kids couldn’t go to the Roller Rink unless it was a Thursday night. Steele wished to not be apart of these rules so he chose to not even go to the swimming pool or skate at the Roller Rink. He also brings up a man called Ted McDougal, he had a similar experience in political science class of mostly black students. Ted was worried about how the black students would react if he spoke out in the class, so to avoid this situation he just didn’t speak. He wanted to avoid being judged so just being quiet was his safe way to not be judged. These circumstances can affect your performance I believe, for example, when a white track runner is racing against black runners, the stereotype is black people are typically more athletic. So the white runner will have to overcome a big obstacle or his performance will be bad. The white track runner can also be intimidated by how all the other runners were black. Knowing that most of all black people are more athletic than white people, this could affect his race in a huge way. As us people move throughout the world, we are aware of how we may be judged, and that impact can affect our performance in either a big or small way every day. Over time this could lead to unemployment, unsuccessful marriage, high crime rate, and a low educational achievement. Steele also argues that a great number of people are affected by “Identity contingencies,” this is where people feel that they have to act a certain way with their social identity to get what they desire. In the book, Steele offers many cures for people who go through identity contingencies. One big point that Steele offers is that to avoid these contingencies you can move toward or away from a stereotype. He also says that we can support each other by doing peer to peer guides. Steele wanted to go deeper with this so he brought together his colleagues and did an experiment. In this experiment, they tested gender and test performance. Steele and colleagues told the participants that even though the stereotype is that men perform better than women on test performance, for that certain test, the results showed that women performed better than men. Before this change of preference, females generally scored less than males. After knowing this Steele suggested that even when different groups have equal abilities, a stereotype is so powerful to where it can affect the way you perform on tests. Steele looks at people who avoid racial categories, he also says that many people tried to avoid these situations by “self-segregating” themselves. To get away from racial categories, people soon started to go to groups who shared the same identity. Many people in the world don’t even know the definition of a stereotype but go through it everyday. There are many people in the world who are your friends and they witness stereotypes on them but you probably never knew. There are schools that go through these threats everyday. As a society, we have a tendency to only want to hear from those who agree with us. However, we need to foster an environment where students can hear from others who may not hold the same views as them, and we must allow them to feel safe in doing so. There are kids that don’t even tell anyone about their struggles in school, most kids don’t even like to tell their parents because they feel like they are embarrassed. That is another reason why I feel students should discuss their problems with one another and solve these difficulties they have between each other. Reading this book really helped me understand why and how people can judge you. Although, people judge you in many ways you don’t know, you can still be successful in many ways. Everywhere you go people will judge you but being the stronger person in my opinion is the best way to handle these situations.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.