Coti Farias
Holly Pappas
English 101
May 9, 2014
Can some things be taught or are most things inborn? Persistence is the ability to learn to keep moving forward in spite how difficult something is. It’s about staying positive through out difficult obstacles to reach a goal. Goals you could reach while being persistent might be buying a car or house, getting a degree, or even trying to get a promotion at work. Sometimes trying to reach a goal can be difficult, and you may want to give up. There are many people in your life that can influence you to do better in your life but who can teach you how to be persistent? Could it be family, friend or maybe even a doctor?
In the article “Persistence is learned from Fathers, Says Study” Mikaela Conley states that “persistence can be taught from fathers by those who listen to their children, have a close relationship, set appropriate rules, and also grant appropriate freedoms” (Conley 9). Fathers who commit to doing this with their children can lead them to a successful path in the future. Teaching persistence is like climbing a ladder, you must teach one step at a time. Showing children how important and meaningful something is can be done by encouraging children even if they don’t believe in themselves so they can reach their goal. For example, if you tell your child to keep on trying especially when children receive a bad grade in school, they will strive to do better next time because they persist to keep on going. Letting them know not stop because something is difficult in life like school is teaching them how to be persistent.
Not only fathers can teach their children to be persistent but other family members as well. In Tristan’s memoir, he talks about how his parents and grandparents continually reminded him about never giving up on the challenges he had experienced, and had to stand up to every challenge that came his way. Tristan’s parents and grandparents taught him how to overcome the challenges like learning how to ride a bicycle step by step. Learning how to ride a bicycle takes times, even though it can be easy with training wheels but a difficult experience to transition from training wheels to riding without them. They pushed him not to give up because he would get it one day. Over time he finally managed to ride a bicycle without training wheels because of his grandparents were so supportive toward his difficult struggle to ride a bicycle. Tristan’s experience with learning how to ride a bike taught him how to be persistent with learning a new skill like riding a bike. His parents and grandparents motivated him until he finally learned how to ride a bike.
However parents can help teach how to be persistence, so can health care professionals. In Jeff’s memoir, he states that he had a difficult struggle with his weight during his high school years. He wanted to play football but because of his weight his blood pressure was too high. He struggled a long time dealing with this, but over time someone helped him. His mother’s friend, a nutritionist, helped him with some knowledge how to live a healthy lifestyle. The nutritionist taught him good eating habits and how to read the nutrition facts of products. He struggles with his weight and wanted to do something but didn’t know how till the nutritionist helps him. He then sets a goal to lose weight from all the advice he had received. He started going to the gym to achieve his this goal over time. Losing weight can not happen over one day or one week it takes lots of time, dedication and persistence toward reaching the goal. Having a health care professional give him some basic knowledge on a topic has taught Jeff how to be persistent to lose weight in this milestone in life. Not only has he learned a lot about the body works but he now has the mindset to reach his goal in the future.
Although parents, grandparents and health care professional can teach persistence so can many other people in a lifetime. In the article “Can kids be Taught Persistence?” Jennie Rose writes “ that’s a skill that parents can certainly help their children develop – but so can teachers and coaches and mentors and neighbors and lots of people” (Rose 4). She states that parents can teach persistence but the community can too. For example, teachers can help students with learning math like fractions and encourage them to keep trying to solve the math problem until it’s solved. Coaches can by teaching athletes to deal with failure when they lose a game. Mentors teach how to be persistence by guiding students to the correct lane and helping with life issues.
However, persistence takes time to achieve, it’s about wanting to get somewhere, reaching the top. Almost like climbing a mountain, as you climb you see the top as much as you want to get to the top to see the view. You must continue to struggle each step to reach the goal. Anyone can teach you how to be persistence from parents, grandparents, health care workers, teachers, coaches and much more but it all relies on you doing the continued effort to reach top of it all. You must put everything in to get what you want in life; the people helping you is just one step closer to the prize.
Work Cited:
Conley, Mikaela. “Persistence Is Learned from Fathers, Says Study.” ABC News. ABC News
Network, 15 June 2012. Web. 03 Mar. 2014.
Jeffstew [Jeff] “Re. Memoir Rough Draft – Persistence”. Edublogs. Edublogs.org. 03 Feb 2014. Web. 12. Mar. 2014.
Tristanridesflat [Tristan Lacle] “Re: Memoir Final”. Edublogs. Edublogs.org 17 Feb. 2014. Web. 12. Mar. 2014.
Rose, Jennie. “Can Kids Be Taught Persistence?” MindShift. Blogs.kqed.org, July 2012. Web. 03
Mar. 2014.