Welcome FHS students! Please check your FHS gmail! We'll use this blog to talk about our summer readings. Sign into Google with your Fairview Schools login. Speak, Never Fall Down, and The Age of Miracles discussion questions are all on this page. Scroll down to find each novel's questions. Then, click on Comment link following the questions you wish to answer. Click on the page links on the left to access additional information.
Discussion Questions for All Novels
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Speak: 8: Art is About Making Mistakes
8. Mr. Freeman also says that "art is about making mistakes and learning from them." What else is like this? Explain.
16thomsonz Re: Speak: 8: Art is About Making Mistakes.
Throughout the novel, Mr.Freeman emphasizes the philosophy that art and life are all in the same. So, when he says “art is about making mistakes and learning from them.” I believe he is not only literally speaking for art, but also metaphorically speaking for life as well. Not to dive in to subjectivity, but I do believe in Mr.Freeman’s philosophy. In life,like in art, we make mistakes whether it be slip of the hand, or risky decisions with bad results. If an artist doesn’t fix what they did wrong then they will always be a troubled, and a considerably bad artist. When humans don’t learn from mistakes they will have the same outcome with life, but with much sadder results. Now I will Digress from the similarities and focus a little more onto the living experience. As individuals we all have had and will have an unfathomable amount of experiences. Some of these experiences are good, while others are terrible. They will cause us to have emotions: happiness, fear, despair, joy, insight, etc. All of these experiences and feelings are the blueprints of our personal existence. If we didn’t learn from the bad, we could never progress towards good. We grow from error, we strive to fix our mistakes. We each have our different motives for doing so, but regardless we learn, we grow, we develop. The process is a fundamental of life, and it will never end until the day the coroner comes knocking at your door.
“Art is about making mistakes and learning from them.” This is a very wise and true statement. It applies to not just art, but life. Life is all about making mistakes and learning from them. If we didn’t make mistakes, then how would we grow? No one likes making mistakes, including myself; but in a way, we should be thankful for them. We are made better through mistakes and become more knowledgeable. Plus, would life be interesting without mistakes? I personally think not. In Speak there are numerous examples of learning from mistakes. I’d say that the two large mistakes Melinda makes are going to Andy Evans party, and not telling anyone that she was raped. These mistakes completely alter her life. Yet, she grows stronger from them in the end. Instead of wasting our lives away by dwelling on the past, we need to accept the fact that we’ve made mistakes, and we need to grow from them to better our future.
I agree with Sertz. Life is all about learning from the mistakes that you make. Our parents try our entire life to stop us from repeating the mistakes they made, but we never truly learn unless we make the mistakes ourselves. I agree that Melinda’s two mistakes was going to Andy Evan’s party and keeping the secret about being raped. She should have avoided going to an inappropriate party behind her parents’ backs. In the end, Melinda learned her lesson about going to alcohol related parties because she was raped. She could have avoided the entire situation if she did not go to the party, but now she knows to avoid parties like these. What if a similar situation happened to her in college? Melinda couldn’t not risk her grades with a mental breakdown during the most important time of her life. Her future wouldn’t have become a lot worse if she didn’t learn from her mistakes while she was young.
I like how Shannon says that life would not be interesting if we didn’t make mistakes. The chance of making a mistake is what gives situations risk, danger, and excitement. If you always knew you were going to succeed at anything you tried, why try anything? But if there is a risk to something, if you have a good chance of not succeeding or making a mistake, you are drawn to the situation. You want to see if you can beat the odds, you want to see if you can win. This type of challenge gives life spice and encourages us to grow as a person. And when we fail, we need to be able to take that failure and learn from it. This way, no matter if you win or lose, you are always learning and growing.
@16sertzs. As you said, Melinda grew from the experience of being raped. Do you think she would be as mature of an individual? or Do you think she would be a totally different person? The only reason I ask is, as terrible as this sounds, maybe that experience was there for a reason, and maybe it did more good than bad. Though the initial symptoms where bad, towards the end she starts to slowly sprout into a better, happier person.
I definitely feel that Melinda would be a completely different person, had she not been raped. She would probably be much more immature. Still, I don't feel that being raped made her more "mature". Melinda doesn't really strike me as a mature person. I think she will become more mature by finding strength starting at the end of the book. In no way do I find Melinda being raped as something that "did more good than bad." Everyone grows as a person eventually, and Melinda would most likely have grown at a normal pace had she not been taken advantage of.
Throughout the novel Speak, the main character, Melinda, frequently battles the consequences from past mistakes. Melinda toils with physical and emotional damage while she is treated as an outsider by her fellow classmates. One place Melinda feels secure is Mr. Freeman’s art class. Mr. Freeman says that “art is about making mistakes and learning from them.” Not only does Mr. Freeman’s advice apply to art, but life as well. If we stop trying to succeed after one mistake, nothing would be accomplished, invented, or improved. Personally, I believe life would be boring if everything and everyone was perfect. Our mistakes, and the lessons we learn from our mistakes contribute to our lifestyle, and character. Mr. Freeman’s statement applies to life because we must learn from past mistakes in order to move on from them. Throughout Speak, Melinda learns from her mistakes, and slowly overcomes her pain, guilt and anger. With the help of Mr. Freeman, Melinda learns to accept her mistakes in artwork, and in life.
In Grace’s post, she says, “If we stop trying to succeed after one mistake, nothing would be accomplished, invented, or improved.” Grace's statement is very accurate. If we made one little mistake at life and stoped trying, nothing would have been learned. Because nobody is perfect, we make a lot of mistakes and learn from them. If we would try extremely hard to prevent mistakes, we would not be as open to information as if we wouldn’t try. Grace also talks about how boring life would be without mistakes. Mistakes make us who we are today. If we all were perfect, there would be no divergence. Everybody would be alike one another, never making a mistake. Mistakes make us who we are today.
In the novel Speak, one of my favorite and most wise characters, Mr. Freeman, tells Melinda that "art is about making mistakes and learning from them." This quote is so legitimate because it's not just about art itself, but also it is referring about life. Throughout the novel Melinda finds herself feeling safe and protected in the art room. I think one of the reasons that she can feel so safe in the art room is due to the fact that when she makes mistakes on her art work, Mr. Freeman and Ivy tell her to leave the mistakes because that is what art is all about. At first, Melinda felt like she had to be perfect on her first try when working on her tree, and got worried that when she made a mistake that it would ruin everything. I believe Melinda acquired this insecurity ever since she got raped and called the cops causing the party she was at to be busted. I feel like she regretted calling the cops because it ruined all her relationships with everyone that night; however, no one knew the real reason of the call. Throughout the novel Melinda slowly started to learn that even though she made a mistake of calling the cops, she began to learn who she can trust and how dangerous the world can be. By the end of the novel Speak, Melinda learned through the many different experiences she had, that being raped had really affected her whole entire life and that she needed to speak up about it. Referring back to the quote Mr. Freeman told her that "art is about making mistakes and learning from them." not only applied to her life, but also to her art work. Throughout the whole novel after she was assigned a tree as her art project, she learned that the mistakes she made on it, was what helped make the tree build up to become such a fine piece of art and meaning. Overall, Mr. Freeman's wise words taught Melinda that mistakes are a good thing, as long as you can learn from them, and Melinda surely learned a lot.
A wise art teacher once said, “Art is about making mistakes and learning from them.” As with many things in life, mistakes are necessary for learning. Life itself is like art in this way. In order to mature and grow as a person, it is necessary to make mistakes. No matter how many times or how many different ways parents tell their children that something does not work or that something is not safe, the children will not truly believe their parents until they try it for themselves. After doing this a couple hundred times over the years, the children might learn from their mistake of not trusting their parents and might actually believe their parents. Parents have learned from their mistakes over the ages, as will their kids, their kids’ kids, and so on. It is the same way in school. I know that when I miss a question on a test, in the future I will remember missing that question and what the correct answer is more than I will remember the questions I had answered correctly. In all honesty, by making mistakes in school, I feel as though I learn more and learn better. I believe that one of the main reasons people learn from their mistakes is because people do not like making mistakes. Because people do not want to make the same mistake again, they make sure that they fix whatever they did wrong and therefore learn from their mistake. Life is about making mistakes. Without mistakes, how will people grow?
I agree with Antonia when she states, “No matter how many times or how many different ways parents tell their children that something does not work or that something is not safe, the children will not truly believe their parents until they try it for themselves.” There have been countless times when my parents have told me not to do something because they predict that some wild, ridiculous outcome will become of it. However, due to the fact that I know all and they know nothing, I proceed to do it anyway. Then, in a completely unforeseen event the wild, ridiculous prediction by my parents comes true. However, I would not have believed my parents to be right unless I made the mistake myself and learned from the mistake myself. I also agree with Antonia when she says, “By making mistakes in school, I feel as though I learn more and learn better.” When I make a mistake in school I tend to pay more attention to that particular problem or question. When I do this I make sure that I don’t miss the specific question/problem again and really learn it.
Antonia ends her response with, “Without mistakes, how will people grow?” I completely agree with this statement. Antonia also uses children in her response, however, she states that they will not believe their parents and will do the opposite of what they say. This is very true, many children constantly disobey their parents because they think whatever they are trying will work out better for them. It almost never does, and we are constantly learning about what is wrong, what will work, what does not work out, and what we should do next. Thanks to our ability as people to understand and analyze the mistakes we have made, we are constantly learning.
In the novel Speak, Melinda's art teacher tells her that "art is about making mistakes and learning from them." This wisdom can also be transferred to all aspects of life. Nobody is perfect in this world, and some of our mistakes actually turned into unexpected blessings. An example of this could be the vaccine for polio. Dr. Jonas Salk (the inventor) accidentally let mold grow on his experiments, and that mistake turned out to be an amazing discovery in the world of medicine. Everything needs to make a mistake to adapt. Mistakes are how we find out what's poisonous, painful, or even life threatening. If something we do is accompanied by an unpleasant experience, we know not to do it again. I think that every mistake that I make is actually something wonderful because it helps me improve. Take marching band for an example. If I'm marching and I do something wrong or on accident, it makes me pay close attention to make sure that my technique is perfect. Therefore, the mistake made me a better marcher overall. This example can be applied to almost everything in life. Another example could be if I forget to study for a test and fail it. I learn from that mistake that I have to remember to study if I don't want to fail again. Every mistake we make, we learn from. That makes us a better person overall.
Have to wholly agree with Sammy on the standing that there can be no growth and development without people making mistakes along the way. Just like she pointed out with Polio, had that mistake not happened it may still be a big issue among people.
In sports you also have to learn from your mistakes. Almost all sports are similar to art in the way that you must learn from your mistakes for many reasons. In sports there are many things you need to learn such as the rules, techniques, and so on. The great thing is that there are many games to play involving sports and with every game you play you become a little bit better. However, if you do not learn and adapt as you play sports you don’t get any better and your competition will pass you. That is why veterans of a sport are generally much better than their rookie counterparts. They have years of experience under their belts and have made many mistakes that they hopefully do not repeat. Also, in sports it is a lot of muscle memory, and the more times that your body does it right the easier it is making it vital to learn from mistakes. However, if you don’t learn from your mistakes and correct them it can lead to some very bad habits while playing the sport you enjoy. Also, in both arts and sports you can learn from the mistakes of those before you. For example, much of my knowledge from sports has come from the wisdom of people such as my coaches and my father have given which has been based off of their own mistakes. Also, simply life is also similar to this. In life, if you don’t learn from your mistakes there can be some serious repercussions. In life few things will go your way the first time as in the case of many inventors. If all the inventors in the world quit after their first failure very few would be successful, but many chose to learn from their mistakes and make a successful, useful invention. Also, this could apply to school life. When in school you must learn from the social and academic mistakes you make so that you do not repeat them in your professional career. That is just a few ways that learning from your mistakes translates into everyday life.
When I originally read this question, sports did not cross my mind as an example. But now that Harold brings it up, I definitely think sports is a great example of where learning from your mistakes comes in handy. In sports, you either make the right decision or the wrong decision whereas in life you can simply do something that is neither right nor wrong. Therefore, since nobody is perfect, you make at least one mistake per game. Now the conflict is if you choose to learn from your mistakes or not. As Harold points out, “If you do not learn and adapt as you play sports you don’t get any better and your competition will pass you.” If you remain in your comfort zone and just continue playing the way that you’ve been playing, then you will remain at the same skill level. As the years go on, the athletes that choose to learn from their mistakes, push themselves to play harder, and leave their comfort zone will improve. Even if you used to outshine them all with your natural ability, they will surpass you simply by trying harder. Allow the people who know what they’re talking about to help you, to coach you. Do not simply learn from your mistakes, but learn from the mistakes of others as well.
Mr. Freeman makes a lot of allusions about art and life. Not only is art about making mistakes and learning from them, but life is also about learning from mistakes that you have made. You should embrace the mistakes you make and remember what you did and learn from it. In art, when you make a mistake you correct it and you teach yourself how to never make that same mistake again. Mistakes work the same way in life. You make a mistake, you learn and grow as a person and you fix it. Melinda learns from her mistakes. She learns to not keep silent and internalize her problems. She speaks out and heals.
I believe that Nina is in fact correct when she relates Mr.Freeman's statement about making mistakes in art and learning from them to life lessons. She talks about how when you make a mistake in art you teach yourself to never make that mistake again. That is how it works in life too. The way we live our life is that we make mistakes and then learn how to fix that mistake. I agree that Melinda also made the mistake of keeping quiet and not opening up to others about her problems. She did end up learning from this very mistake though because once she tells the world her problem, everything ends up getting better for her.
Life is about making mistakes and learning from them. Often times are parents protect us from making mistakes, but even though they care about us and don’t want us to get hurt, we will never learn from those mistakes. Life is also about trial and error; our mistakes shape us into adults. That is the best way I learn, it is a difficult way to learn because sometimes you only get one chance. That can make us afraid to make mistakes, but everyone screws up. We have nothing to be afraid of. Also how we deal with our mistakes has a large impact on life. If we choose to dwell on faults, instead of trying to change our actions, we could end up with a very bad life. I could make a terrible mistake and cry about it and think “Oh poor me my life is so hard” or “How could I be so stupid” but both don’t fix the problem. Neither of them involves study, practicing, etc. It requires effort to change your mistakes. Mistakes shape our world and our lives. They can build us or break us, but it all comes down to us.
Like most of Mr.Freeman's words of wisdoms, this statement has more meaning to it. Not only is he talking about art, but he is also relating it back to life. Mr.Freeman believes that art is a lot like life. Many famous artists that we know of have made many mistakes but they end up growing as an artists and learning from them. No one is perfect. Just imagine how boring life would be if everyone was perfect. In life mistakes can help you grow as a person and become wiser, therefore they are a good thing. People learn most things in life by making mistakes. Think about Melinda for example. She made a mistake that cost her her own friendship by not speaking out and explaining what actually happened that night. She decided to try and cancel out the memory by remaining silent because she didn't want her past to haunt her. It turns out she couldn't forget what happened and she had to let it out. Once she told Rachel, it was too late and she thought it was all a lie. But after Rachel realized it was true, speaking up really paid off for Melinda. I am sure her friends came back in her life and she learned her lesson. Remaining silent and keeping everything in isn't always the best way to cope with things. The error Melinda made in life taught her a lesson, just like mistakes in art can.
Lea has made many good points in her answer. I agree with her when she says mistakes can help you grow as a person and become wiser. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone eventually learns from them. Melinda made the mistake of running away from the cops after she had called them and not telling the truth about that night. After a while however, she tells Rachel, but she doesn't believe her. In the end, after Andy tries to attack her again, the truth comes out. Melinda realizes she doesn't want to hide in her hole anymore. She doesn't want to stay silent anymore. She learned from her mistake when she realizes this. Lea states 'The error Melinda made in life taught her a lesson, just like mistakes in art can.' I completely agree with her. Life's not perfect, there's mistakes in everyone's. No art is perfect either, there's always going to be a mistake, and we'll learn to get better and correct it.
All in all life is all about mistakes and how you learn from them. Your life is all about learning to be who you were meant to be and how you get to that point. Some people find out who they’re meant to be early in life, but this only because they have faced more trials and made more mistakes in the short period of time. Like in art you may try a thousand times and still not get right, so you get up, dust yourself off, and learn from the mistake, and make it even better than it was before. People often think that once they make a mistake it’s written in stone that they can never do it right, which is far from the truth. If people always gave up after they made a mistake no one would get anywhere in life! Just take me for instance, for all who know me, I can’t spell worth anything and yet I still write. Heck I’ve written novels and scripts because I never let my spelling mistakes keep me from doing what I want to do. I’ve seen people almost throw away things they love doing because they often make mistakes doing it, never stopping to think that they’re learning how to do everything they keep messing up on all the better by failing at first. No one is perfect at everything on the first try; if we were life would be very boring. Come on think about it, if we were all perfect at everything that we ever did we would never be motivated to go out and do it, or get better because we already were perfect at it. Life and everything about it is about making horrible mistakes and taking a lesson away from it. Life is about taking everything that you mess up on and using it to make yourself a better person, musician, artist, writer, athlete, brother, sister, mother, father, anything you want to be! That’s what every mistake you make in life is meant to do, make you a better you.
“Art is about making mistakes, and learning from them.” This quote is an example of life, and how we make choices. We make choices in life based on past experiences, and past mistakes. Nobody is perfect; humans always make mistakes. However, when we make a mistake we can learn from it so that when faced with a similar issue in the future, we can hopefully make a better choice. If we never made mistakes, we would never learn. When Melinda made mistakes in art, she learned that whatever she did didn’t work. However, she was getting frustrated and Mr. Freeman wanted to remind her that if she hadn’t made those mistakes, she wouldn’t know they didn’t work. Melinda was making mistakes, but she needed to remember that she needed to learn from them. Humans will always make mistakes, but we have to remember to learn from them. If we don't learn we will constantly make the same mistakes. Once we learn what we did wrong, we can move on a grow as a person.
In Emily Thayer's response she says "If we never made mistakes, we would never learn", people are always afraid to make mistakes, but what Emily just said proves that wrong. She also said that no one is perfect and that we make decisions on past experiences. Emily did a great job explaining how everyone makes mistakes and is altered by them. Emily also wrote that humans sometime have to be reminded to learn from our mistakes. I never looked at it that way before. Emily did a great job explaining how everyone learns from mistakes in life.
I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Freeman. This world is full of mistakes. Not one person on this earth is perfect. We depend on our flaws so that we can progress and do better the next time that we try. This philosophy is the same in the musical world. Not everyone can just pick up a piece of music for the first time and breeze right through it without any problems. We are able to notice those flaws in time and find a way to fix them with practice. I have learned from my failures and sufficiently improved musically. Like music, school and friendships require learning from past hardships and mistakes. Making unwise choices in school, such as not completing and turning assignments in on time will cost you, but they will also motivate you to do better and improve in your schoolwork. Melinda’s decision to lower her defences at the party affected her both mentally and physically. She is unable to let go of the past and progress any further because she is unable to share her secret. The only way she can move on in her life is by being open and learning from those mistakes that she had made. After she lets her past behind her, she is able to realize that because she spoke up about her struggles she can never make the same choice again. We all are happier when we learn from our imperfections and strive to never make the same decisions again.
Life is also about making mistakes and learning from them. No one is born perfect, and everyone has to do bad things or do something wrong in order to learn from it and become a better person. For example, a younger child will get in trouble more often than an older child simply because the older child has already made the same mistakes and has learned not to make them again. This is incredibly important that children are given the chance to make mistakes while under their parents’ care. When children are disciplined, they become more polite, good mannered, and have a chance to develop their own moral compass that will affect how they will act as an adult. Honestly, life is just as much about making mistakes as art is.
16thomsonz Re: Speak: 8: Art is About Making Mistakes.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the novel, Mr.Freeman emphasizes the philosophy that art and life are all in the same. So, when he says “art is about making mistakes and learning from them.” I believe he is not only literally speaking for art, but also metaphorically speaking for life as well. Not to dive in to subjectivity, but I do believe in Mr.Freeman’s philosophy. In life,like in art, we make mistakes whether it be slip of the hand, or risky decisions with bad results. If an artist doesn’t fix what they did wrong then they will always be a troubled, and a considerably bad artist. When humans don’t learn from mistakes they will have the same outcome with life, but with much sadder results.
Now I will Digress from the similarities and focus a little more onto the living experience. As individuals we all have had and will have an unfathomable amount of experiences. Some of these experiences are good, while others are terrible. They will cause us to have emotions: happiness, fear, despair, joy, insight, etc. All of these experiences and feelings are the blueprints of our personal existence. If we didn’t learn from the bad, we could never progress towards good. We grow from error, we strive to fix our mistakes. We each have our different motives for doing so, but regardless we learn, we grow, we develop. The process is a fundamental of life, and it will never end until the day the coroner comes knocking at your door.
“Art is about making mistakes and learning from them.” This is a very wise and true statement. It applies to not just art, but life. Life is all about making mistakes and learning from them. If we didn’t make mistakes, then how would we grow? No one likes making mistakes, including myself; but in a way, we should be thankful for them. We are made better through mistakes and become more knowledgeable. Plus, would life be interesting without mistakes? I personally think not.
ReplyDeleteIn Speak there are numerous examples of learning from mistakes. I’d say that the two large mistakes Melinda makes are going to Andy Evans party, and not telling anyone that she was raped. These mistakes completely alter her life. Yet, she grows stronger from them in the end. Instead of wasting our lives away by dwelling on the past, we need to accept the fact that we’ve made mistakes, and we need to grow from them to better our future.
I agree with Sertz. Life is all about learning from the mistakes that you make. Our parents try our entire life to stop us from repeating the mistakes they made, but we never truly learn unless we make the mistakes ourselves. I agree that Melinda’s two mistakes was going to Andy Evan’s party and keeping the secret about being raped. She should have avoided going to an inappropriate party behind her parents’ backs. In the end, Melinda learned her lesson about going to alcohol related parties because she was raped. She could have avoided the entire situation if she did not go to the party, but now she knows to avoid parties like these. What if a similar situation happened to her in college? Melinda couldn’t not risk her grades with a mental breakdown during the most important time of her life. Her future wouldn’t have become a lot worse if she didn’t learn from her mistakes while she was young.
DeleteI like how Shannon says that life would not be interesting if we didn’t make mistakes. The chance of making a mistake is what gives situations risk, danger, and excitement. If you always knew you were going to succeed at anything you tried, why try anything? But if there is a risk to something, if you have a good chance of not succeeding or making a mistake, you are drawn to the situation. You want to see if you can beat the odds, you want to see if you can win. This type of challenge gives life spice and encourages us to grow as a person. And when we fail, we need to be able to take that failure and learn from it. This way, no matter if you win or lose, you are always learning and growing.
Delete@16sertzs. As you said, Melinda grew from the experience of being raped. Do you think she would be as mature of an individual? or Do you think she would be a totally different person? The only reason I ask is, as terrible as this sounds, maybe that experience was there for a reason, and maybe it did more good than bad. Though the initial symptoms where bad, towards the end she starts to slowly sprout into a better, happier person.
ReplyDeleteI definitely feel that Melinda would be a completely different person, had she not been raped. She would probably be much more immature. Still, I don't feel that being raped made her more "mature". Melinda doesn't really strike me as a mature person. I think she will become more mature by finding strength starting at the end of the book. In no way do I find Melinda being raped as something that "did more good than bad." Everyone grows as a person eventually, and Melinda would most likely have grown at a normal pace had she not been taken advantage of.
DeleteThroughout the novel Speak, the main character, Melinda, frequently battles the consequences from past mistakes. Melinda toils with physical and emotional damage while she is treated as an outsider by her fellow classmates. One place Melinda feels secure is Mr. Freeman’s art class. Mr. Freeman says that “art is about making mistakes and learning from them.” Not only does Mr. Freeman’s advice apply to art, but life as well. If we stop trying to succeed after one mistake, nothing would be accomplished, invented, or improved. Personally, I believe life would be boring if everything and everyone was perfect. Our mistakes, and the lessons we learn from our mistakes contribute to our lifestyle, and character. Mr. Freeman’s statement applies to life because we must learn from past mistakes in order to move on from them. Throughout Speak, Melinda learns from her mistakes, and slowly overcomes her pain, guilt and anger. With the help of Mr. Freeman, Melinda learns to accept her mistakes in artwork, and in life.
ReplyDeleteIn Grace’s post, she says, “If we stop trying to succeed after one mistake, nothing would be accomplished, invented, or improved.” Grace's statement is very accurate. If we made one little mistake at life and stoped trying, nothing would have been learned. Because nobody is perfect, we make a lot of mistakes and learn from them. If we would try extremely hard to prevent mistakes, we would not be as open to information as if we wouldn’t try. Grace also talks about how boring life would be without mistakes. Mistakes make us who we are today. If we all were perfect, there would be no divergence. Everybody would be alike one another, never making a mistake. Mistakes make us who we are today.
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ReplyDeleteIn the novel Speak, one of my favorite and most wise characters, Mr. Freeman, tells Melinda that "art is about making mistakes and learning from them." This quote is so legitimate because it's not just about art itself, but also it is referring about life. Throughout the novel Melinda finds herself feeling safe and protected in the art room. I think one of the reasons that she can feel so safe in the art room is due to the fact that when she makes mistakes on her art work, Mr. Freeman and Ivy tell her to leave the mistakes because that is what art is all about. At first, Melinda felt like she had to be perfect on her first try when working on her tree, and got worried that when she made a mistake that it would ruin everything. I believe Melinda acquired this insecurity ever since she got raped and called the cops causing the party she was at to be busted. I feel like she regretted calling the cops because it ruined all her relationships with everyone that night; however, no one knew the real reason of the call. Throughout the novel Melinda slowly started to learn that even though she made a mistake of calling the cops, she began to learn who she can trust and how dangerous the world can be. By the end of the novel Speak, Melinda learned through the many different experiences she had, that being raped had really affected her whole entire life and that she needed to speak up about it. Referring back to the quote Mr. Freeman told her that "art is about making mistakes and learning from them." not only applied to her life, but also to her art work. Throughout the whole novel after she was assigned a tree as her art project, she learned that the mistakes she made on it, was what helped make the tree build up to become such a fine piece of art and meaning. Overall, Mr. Freeman's wise words taught Melinda that mistakes are a good thing, as long as you can learn from them, and Melinda surely learned a lot.
ReplyDeleteA wise art teacher once said, “Art is about making mistakes and learning from them.” As with many things in life, mistakes are necessary for learning. Life itself is like art in this way.
ReplyDeleteIn order to mature and grow as a person, it is necessary to make mistakes. No matter how many times or how many different ways parents tell their children that something does not work or that something is not safe, the children will not truly believe their parents until they try it for themselves. After doing this a couple hundred times over the years, the children might learn from their mistake of not trusting their parents and might actually believe their parents. Parents have learned from their mistakes over the ages, as will their kids, their kids’ kids, and so on.
It is the same way in school. I know that when I miss a question on a test, in the future I will remember missing that question and what the correct answer is more than I will remember the questions I had answered correctly. In all honesty, by making mistakes in school, I feel as though I learn more and learn better.
I believe that one of the main reasons people learn from their mistakes is because people do not like making mistakes. Because people do not want to make the same mistake again, they make sure that they fix whatever they did wrong and therefore learn from their mistake.
Life is about making mistakes. Without mistakes, how will people grow?
I agree with Antonia when she states, “No matter how many times or how many different ways parents tell their children that something does not work or that something is not safe, the children will not truly believe their parents until they try it for themselves.” There have been countless times when my parents have told me not to do something because they predict that some wild, ridiculous outcome will become of it. However, due to the fact that I know all and they know nothing, I proceed to do it anyway. Then, in a completely unforeseen event the wild, ridiculous prediction by my parents comes true. However, I would not have believed my parents to be right unless I made the mistake myself and learned from the mistake myself.
DeleteI also agree with Antonia when she says, “By making mistakes in school, I feel as though I learn more and learn better.” When I make a mistake in school I tend to pay more attention to that particular problem or question. When I do this I make sure that I don’t miss the specific question/problem again and really learn it.
Antonia ends her response with, “Without mistakes, how will people grow?” I completely agree with this statement. Antonia also uses children in her response, however, she states that they will not believe their parents and will do the opposite of what they say. This is very true, many children constantly disobey their parents because they think whatever they are trying will work out better for them. It almost never does, and we are constantly learning about what is wrong, what will work, what does not work out, and what we should do next. Thanks to our ability as people to understand and analyze the mistakes we have made, we are constantly learning.
DeleteIn the novel Speak, Melinda's art teacher tells her that "art is about making mistakes and learning from them." This wisdom can also be transferred to all aspects of life. Nobody is perfect in this world, and some of our mistakes actually turned into unexpected blessings. An example of this could be the vaccine for polio. Dr. Jonas Salk (the inventor) accidentally let mold grow on his experiments, and that mistake turned out to be an amazing discovery in the world of medicine. Everything needs to make a mistake to adapt. Mistakes are how we find out what's poisonous, painful, or even life threatening. If something we do is accompanied by an unpleasant experience, we know not to do it again. I think that every mistake that I make is actually something wonderful because it helps me improve. Take marching band for an example. If I'm marching and I do something wrong or on accident, it makes me pay close attention to make sure that my technique is perfect. Therefore, the mistake made me a better marcher overall. This example can be applied to almost everything in life. Another example could be if I forget to study for a test and fail it. I learn from that mistake that I have to remember to study if I don't want to fail again. Every mistake we make, we learn from. That makes us a better person overall.
ReplyDeleteHave to wholly agree with Sammy on the standing that there can be no growth and development without people making mistakes along the way. Just like she pointed out with Polio, had that mistake not happened it may still be a big issue among people.
DeleteIn sports you also have to learn from your mistakes. Almost all sports are similar to art in the way that you must learn from your mistakes for many reasons. In sports there are many things you need to learn such as the rules, techniques, and so on. The great thing is that there are many games to play involving sports and with every game you play you become a little bit better. However, if you do not learn and adapt as you play sports you don’t get any better and your competition will pass you. That is why veterans of a sport are generally much better than their rookie counterparts. They have years of experience under their belts and have made many mistakes that they hopefully do not repeat. Also, in sports it is a lot of muscle memory, and the more times that your body does it right the easier it is making it vital to learn from mistakes. However, if you don’t learn from your mistakes and correct them it can lead to some very bad habits while playing the sport you enjoy. Also, in both arts and sports you can learn from the mistakes of those before you. For example, much of my knowledge from sports has come from the wisdom of people such as my coaches and my father have given which has been based off of their own mistakes.
ReplyDeleteAlso, simply life is also similar to this. In life, if you don’t learn from your mistakes there can be some serious repercussions. In life few things will go your way the first time as in the case of many inventors. If all the inventors in the world quit after their first failure very few would be successful, but many chose to learn from their mistakes and make a successful, useful invention. Also, this could apply to school life. When in school you must learn from the social and academic mistakes you make so that you do not repeat them in your professional career. That is just a few ways that learning from your mistakes translates into everyday life.
When I originally read this question, sports did not cross my mind as an example. But now that Harold brings it up, I definitely think sports is a great example of where learning from your mistakes comes in handy. In sports, you either make the right decision or the wrong decision whereas in life you can simply do something that is neither right nor wrong. Therefore, since nobody is perfect, you make at least one mistake per game. Now the conflict is if you choose to learn from your mistakes or not. As Harold points out, “If you do not learn and adapt as you play sports you don’t get any better and your competition will pass you.” If you remain in your comfort zone and just continue playing the way that you’ve been playing, then you will remain at the same skill level. As the years go on, the athletes that choose to learn from their mistakes, push themselves to play harder, and leave their comfort zone will improve. Even if you used to outshine them all with your natural ability, they will surpass you simply by trying harder. Allow the people who know what they’re talking about to help you, to coach you. Do not simply learn from your mistakes, but learn from the mistakes of others as well.
DeleteMr. Freeman makes a lot of allusions about art and life. Not only is art about making mistakes and learning from them, but life is also about learning from mistakes that you have made. You should embrace the mistakes you make and remember what you did and learn from it. In art, when you make a mistake you correct it and you teach yourself how to never make that same mistake again. Mistakes work the same way in life. You make a mistake, you learn and grow as a person and you fix it. Melinda learns from her mistakes. She learns to not keep silent and internalize her problems. She speaks out and heals.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Nina is in fact correct when she relates Mr.Freeman's statement about making mistakes in art and learning from them to life lessons. She talks about how when you make a mistake in art you teach yourself to never make that mistake again. That is how it works in life too. The way we live our life is that we make mistakes and then learn how to fix that mistake. I agree that Melinda also made the mistake of keeping quiet and not opening up to others about her problems. She did end up learning from this very mistake though because once she tells the world her problem, everything ends up getting better for her.
DeleteLife is about making mistakes and learning from them. Often times are parents protect us from making mistakes, but even though they care about us and don’t want us to get hurt, we will never learn from those mistakes. Life is also about trial and error; our mistakes shape us into adults. That is the best way I learn, it is a difficult way to learn because sometimes you only get one chance. That can make us afraid to make mistakes, but everyone screws up. We have nothing to be afraid of.
ReplyDeleteAlso how we deal with our mistakes has a large impact on life. If we choose to dwell on faults, instead of trying to change our actions, we could end up with a very bad life. I could make a terrible mistake and cry about it and think “Oh poor me my life is so hard” or “How could I be so stupid” but both don’t fix the problem. Neither of them involves study, practicing, etc. It requires effort to change your mistakes. Mistakes shape our world and our lives. They can build us or break us, but it all comes down to us.
Like most of Mr.Freeman's words of wisdoms, this statement has more meaning to it. Not only is he talking about art, but he is also relating it back to life. Mr.Freeman believes that art is a lot like life. Many famous artists that we know of have made many mistakes but they end up growing as an artists and learning from them. No one is perfect. Just imagine how boring life would be if everyone was perfect. In life mistakes can help you grow as a person and become wiser, therefore they are a good thing. People learn most things in life by making mistakes. Think about Melinda for example. She made a mistake that cost her her own friendship by not speaking out and explaining what actually happened that night. She decided to try and cancel out the memory by remaining silent because she didn't want her past to haunt her. It turns out she couldn't forget what happened and she had to let it out. Once she told Rachel, it was too late and she thought it was all a lie. But after Rachel realized it was true, speaking up really paid off for Melinda. I am sure her friends came back in her life and she learned her lesson. Remaining silent and keeping everything in isn't always the best way to cope with things. The error Melinda made in life taught her a lesson, just like mistakes in art can.
ReplyDeleteLea has made many good points in her answer. I agree with her when she says mistakes can help you grow as a person and become wiser. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone eventually learns from them. Melinda made the mistake of running away from the cops after she had called them and not telling the truth about that night. After a while however, she tells Rachel, but she doesn't believe her. In the end, after Andy tries to attack her again, the truth comes out. Melinda realizes she doesn't want to hide in her hole anymore. She doesn't want to stay silent anymore. She learned from her mistake when she realizes this. Lea states 'The error Melinda made in life taught her a lesson, just like mistakes in art can.' I completely agree with her. Life's not perfect, there's mistakes in everyone's. No art is perfect either, there's always going to be a mistake, and we'll learn to get better and correct it.
DeleteAll in all life is all about mistakes and how you learn from them. Your life is all about learning to be who you were meant to be and how you get to that point. Some people find out who they’re meant to be early in life, but this only because they have faced more trials and made more mistakes in the short period of time. Like in art you may try a thousand times and still not get right, so you get up, dust yourself off, and learn from the mistake, and make it even better than it was before. People often think that once they make a mistake it’s written in stone that they can never do it right, which is far from the truth. If people always gave up after they made a mistake no one would get anywhere in life! Just take me for instance, for all who know me, I can’t spell worth anything and yet I still write. Heck I’ve written novels and scripts because I never let my spelling mistakes keep me from doing what I want to do.
ReplyDeleteI’ve seen people almost throw away things they love doing because they often make mistakes doing it, never stopping to think that they’re learning how to do everything they keep messing up on all the better by failing at first. No one is perfect at everything on the first try; if we were life would be very boring. Come on think about it, if we were all perfect at everything that we ever did we would never be motivated to go out and do it, or get better because we already were perfect at it. Life and everything about it is about making horrible mistakes and taking a lesson away from it. Life is about taking everything that you mess up on and using it to make yourself a better person, musician, artist, writer, athlete, brother, sister, mother, father, anything you want to be! That’s what every mistake you make in life is meant to do, make you a better you.
“Art is about making mistakes, and learning from them.” This quote is an example of life, and how we make choices. We make choices in life based on past experiences, and past mistakes. Nobody is perfect; humans always make mistakes. However, when we make a mistake we can learn from it so that when faced with a similar issue in the future, we can hopefully make a better choice. If we never made mistakes, we would never learn. When Melinda made mistakes in art, she learned that whatever she did didn’t work. However, she was getting frustrated and Mr. Freeman wanted to remind her that if she hadn’t made those mistakes, she wouldn’t know they didn’t work. Melinda was making mistakes, but she needed to remember that she needed to learn from them. Humans will always make mistakes, but we have to remember to learn from them. If we don't learn we will constantly make the same mistakes. Once we learn what we did wrong, we can move on a grow as a person.
ReplyDeleteIn Emily Thayer's response she says "If we never made mistakes, we would never learn", people are always afraid to make mistakes, but what Emily just said proves that wrong. She also said that no one is perfect and that we make decisions on past experiences. Emily did a great job explaining how everyone makes mistakes and is altered by them. Emily also wrote that humans sometime have to be reminded to learn from our mistakes. I never looked at it that way before. Emily did a great job explaining how everyone learns from mistakes in life.
DeleteI wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Freeman. This world is full of mistakes. Not one person on this earth is perfect. We depend on our flaws so that we can progress and do better the next time that we try. This philosophy is the same in the musical world. Not everyone can just pick up a piece of music for the first time and breeze right through it without any problems. We are able to notice those flaws in time and find a way to fix them with practice. I have learned from my failures and sufficiently improved musically. Like music, school and friendships require learning from past hardships and mistakes. Making unwise choices in school, such as not completing and turning assignments in on time will cost you, but they will also motivate you to do better and improve in your schoolwork. Melinda’s decision to lower her defences at the party affected her both mentally and physically. She is unable to let go of the past and progress any further because she is unable to share her secret. The only way she can move on in her life is by being open and learning from those mistakes that she had made. After she lets her past behind her, she is able to realize that because she spoke up about her struggles she can never make the same choice again. We all are happier when we learn from our imperfections and strive to never make the same decisions again.
ReplyDeleteLife is also about making mistakes and learning from them. No one is born perfect, and everyone has to do bad things or do something wrong in order to learn from it and become a better person. For example, a younger child will get in trouble more often than an older child simply because the older child has already made the same mistakes and has learned not to make them again. This is incredibly important that children are given the chance to make mistakes while under their parents’ care. When children are disciplined, they become more polite, good mannered, and have a chance to develop their own moral compass that will affect how they will act as an adult. Honestly, life is just as much about making mistakes as art is.
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