Life Lesson
Sometimes in life, our happiness and success depend on our ability to adapt.
Historical Support and Argument
My life lesson that I pulled from this unit is that sometimes in life, our happiness and success depend on our ability to adapt. In this chapter, we learned that many black people were torn from their lives and forced into slavery. Many were shipped illegally over from Africa, but some were taken as free citizens and stripped of their freedom (12 Years a Slave). These people had to be able to adapt quickly in order to survive. If they were unable and unwilling to focus on possible ways of improving their present situation, they were likely to lose hope …show more content…
They had to evaluate their current situation and look for the best way to achieve success. In this unit, we also learned about Prudence Crandall, a white abolitionist who opened a school for African American girls in Canterbury, Connecticut. She originally ran a private school for girls, but faced major opposition when she admitted an African-American girl to her school. The white students’ parents despised this idea, and they insisted that the girl should be expelled. Instead of bending to their will, Crandall decided to open a school exclusively for African-American girls (Prudence Crandall article, Webquest 5). She could have just expelled the girl and tried to backtrack, but she didn’t. She embraced the opportunity to benefit other people, and offer an education to those who would have gone without one otherwise. Another fact that helped me to learn this lesson was that because of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, thousands of Natives were forced to leave their homes and march the Trail of Tears. They had to leave everything that they knew behind and start their lives over in unfamiliar territory. They tried to fight against it, but in the end, the government forced …show more content…
From a fairly young age, we are taught to plan everything out. We have a schedule planned out for us when we are young, and we take over the task of planning out our lives by the time we hit high school age. In high school, every class we take is in preparation for college, future classes, or our future careers. We are told that we should always consider exactly how everything we involve ourselves in will affect our future. This is a good thing in a sense, but it is also a system that causes us to fear change. When everything is so planned out, there is little room for deviation. If something does go wrong or strays from our plan, we panic. This fear of change stifles our ability to adapt to unexpected situations. When our minds are closed off from new challenges and ideas, our happiness and success with suffer. I think that a possible way of fixing this problem would be to start teaching kids from a young age how to adapt to new situations. Instead of learning to fear change, they should be learning to embrace it.
Further Thoughts
Why might it be harder for some people to adapt to new situations than for others? Also, is there any way that we can make it easier for ourselves to face unexpected
Sometimes in life, our happiness and success depend on our ability to adapt.
Historical Support and Argument
My life lesson that I pulled from this unit is that sometimes in life, our happiness and success depend on our ability to adapt. In this chapter, we learned that many black people were torn from their lives and forced into slavery. Many were shipped illegally over from Africa, but some were taken as free citizens and stripped of their freedom (12 Years a Slave). These people had to be able to adapt quickly in order to survive. If they were unable and unwilling to focus on possible ways of improving their present situation, they were likely to lose hope …show more content…
They had to evaluate their current situation and look for the best way to achieve success. In this unit, we also learned about Prudence Crandall, a white abolitionist who opened a school for African American girls in Canterbury, Connecticut. She originally ran a private school for girls, but faced major opposition when she admitted an African-American girl to her school. The white students’ parents despised this idea, and they insisted that the girl should be expelled. Instead of bending to their will, Crandall decided to open a school exclusively for African-American girls (Prudence Crandall article, Webquest 5). She could have just expelled the girl and tried to backtrack, but she didn’t. She embraced the opportunity to benefit other people, and offer an education to those who would have gone without one otherwise. Another fact that helped me to learn this lesson was that because of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, thousands of Natives were forced to leave their homes and march the Trail of Tears. They had to leave everything that they knew behind and start their lives over in unfamiliar territory. They tried to fight against it, but in the end, the government forced …show more content…
From a fairly young age, we are taught to plan everything out. We have a schedule planned out for us when we are young, and we take over the task of planning out our lives by the time we hit high school age. In high school, every class we take is in preparation for college, future classes, or our future careers. We are told that we should always consider exactly how everything we involve ourselves in will affect our future. This is a good thing in a sense, but it is also a system that causes us to fear change. When everything is so planned out, there is little room for deviation. If something does go wrong or strays from our plan, we panic. This fear of change stifles our ability to adapt to unexpected situations. When our minds are closed off from new challenges and ideas, our happiness and success with suffer. I think that a possible way of fixing this problem would be to start teaching kids from a young age how to adapt to new situations. Instead of learning to fear change, they should be learning to embrace it.
Further Thoughts
Why might it be harder for some people to adapt to new situations than for others? Also, is there any way that we can make it easier for ourselves to face unexpected