RD1: What Happened?

Harrison Fong

Shimabukuro, James

ENG 100

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Word Count: 890

The 4Rs: Voyager in the Making

     Back at Kaimuki Middle School, at my eighth grade year, I had received an award at the end of the year known as the Voyager Award. At first, I was confused. “Why was I getting this award,” I thought to myself. I was not the best student, and in fact I had not really been an exemplar student at utilizing the 4Rs: respect, responsibility, resiliency, and relationships. I had the worst grades in all my years of school at the time, holding my first F grades ever in any classes. [THESIS]That was when I realized that there were ways to make use of the 4Rs from when I tried to redeem myself towards the end of that school year.[THESIS]

     The 4Rs are a core part of the school’s behavior standards. Respect means that you care for yourself, your peers, and basically everyone and everything around you. Getting those Fs meant I didn’t care for myself, nor did I really care for my teacher. Part of my shortcomings also contributed to, and also may have been a result of poor relationships. The goal of relationships were to form positive connections with people. The only thing was that when I was struggling, I never bothered to reach out to anyone, and so all my teachers could see was just my lack of respect. I clearly never had any resiliency, since I didn’t make an effort to try to do better at first. And I also did a few shady actions in school. For example, I faked certain homework assignments or didn’t return deficiency notices when they were given to me. This clearly showed that I wasn’t being responsible as a student, nor was I holding myself accountable for my actions. So how did I get the Voyager Award?

     Seeing those Fs on my report card, my parents had clearly lost their minds, because I was normally a really good student. In fact, aside from just the two Fs I had gotten, I actually had As or Bs in other classes. However, after that short episode of anger and disappointment, we immediately working towards redeeming myself. Mom and I had a talk about how we would improve on what happened. What we decided on was having my teachers check and sign my planners. The main role of the planner was to make sure I knew what to do, and when the assignments were due. On top of that, I made more of an effort to be more engaged in class, and reached out to the teachers when I needed help. One of my first major comebacks was when I had done an amazing paper based on a book we had been reading in class. I had my mom to thank for that, but that had set the benchmark for the rest of my assignments, and it definitely paid off. 

     Then came the awards day. The Voyager Award was actually a huge surprise for me. It was like the day of was when they decided to tell me that I was going to receive the award. As I was listening to why I was receiving the award, I felt my stomach turn. I was the complete opposite of something like that. I hadn’t used my 4Rs as well as I should have within the first semester. And at the time, I simply remained humble, but had a few doubts. That’s when I looked at a poster that talked about the 4Rs and everything suddenly clicked for me. The engagement in class  and the care that I put into my assignments showed that I respected and cared for the classes, and that I cared about my own future. The planner checks also showed respect, and also showed that I was making an effort to be more responsible about my own work. My drastic improvement is evidence of resilience because I was able to come back from the slump I was in rather than stay in it. And last, but not least, I had built relationships with my teachers as I had spent some time trying to seek help from them, as well as got to build a relationship with my parents as I asked for their help as well. 

     I never really thought much on it at the time, but I had learned that valuable lesson that the 4Rs can be a staple for anything you do in your life, no matter what school you go to. Every little thing you do in school, every choice you make, the 4Rs exist in some way, shape or form. That’s basically how my mentality and perspective towards  had shifted into a positive one and how I was able to come back from a difficult situation.