Winnie, as a brother I want to share my learning experience with you because of the similar attitude you still have now in fifth grade. But unlike you haven’t even changed or improved and compared to me improve since first grade.
From a young age, I didn’t seem to be a very corporate learner because of the negative feeling I have about learning in America that I’m not adjusted to. This was because I was sent back to China when I was just a few months old, unlike you who grew up here. I grew up accompanied mostly by 奶奶(grandmother) and 姑妈(auntie). I originally thought 姑妈(auntie) and 姑父(uncle) were our parents. But the realities came slapping my face when I was about 4 years old, that I have to leave our 奶奶(grandmother) and 姑妈(auntie) to be sent back to America with our parents. This announcement came as lightning struck my heart making me feel as if somewhat lost and empty in my heart, where I seem to have some kind of negative feeling planted in my heart.
The negative feelings started growing when leaving and arriving in America. I couldn’t accept our parents when I first met them. It took me about a few weeks or a month to have me accept our parents.
About a few months later, our mother sent me to a pre-k. Although I overcame negative feelings with our partner, that doesn’t include the environment and education. From time to time, I would daydream of returning to China, but reality slaps my face again denying my daydream. This results in me growing negative feelings about learning English or anything else with learning. It also made me behave more actively in fooling around and having all the teaching entering from one ear and existing on another. We seem to both have this similar behavior with learning, but it seems like you still haven’t even changed and aren’t willing to even start changing when you’re going to middle school next year.
All of my negative feelings and attitudes start to change when I enter first grade, especially when I receive my report card. During that time my grades weren’t that good, just like the ones and twos you have.
Our mother started becoming very strict and annoying about my grade and performance when I was in first grade, but for you, it seems like a similar case but has no effect on changing your attitude. Every time she picked me up since first grade she would ask my teacher about my performance at school. If any time I didn’t perform well or had an unpleasant grade, our mother would have a repeated lecture on performance and the learning attitude I need. Those repeated lectures made me scared and annoyed, forcing me to act and perform a better impression on my teacher. However, it did little to improve my grade. This seems like a similar situation, but you’re still stepping on the same step and unwilling to move any further up.
My attitude changed when I saw and understood the burden our mother had faced in requesting people to help with my learning and the money needed to waste for cram school. But even with the same experience, you don’t seem to have any change or development. Moreover, it was the discussion our mother had with me about how terrible our family financially is that started waking me up from any naive thoughts of myself and our family.
It also came along with my acceptance and self-awareness of our identity and the family’s financial status. As a result, this also became my life turning point in changing me to a more focused and serious attitude toward learning and improving grades. Although I might set a goal of getting all 4s or 100s I can get, my self-awareness tells me that I have limits and should just try my best. This message is what I want to tell you, although we as a family know that you or I both have limited talents in learning, at least just try and focus!