The Other Wes Moore: Blog prompt- "Are We Products of Our Environment or Products of Our Expectations?"

 

    As I consider the blog article titled "Are we products of our environment or products of our expectations?" It reminds me of a similar saying that states you are what you eat.

I mention this because if we say we are what we eat, then many of us will be considered very unhealthy, but we are not precisely what we eat, but what we perceive it to be. It's the same with being a product of our environmental expectations; it's all about thought and perception. Growing up, I used to hear a lot of the seniors in my community talk about how when young people get into trouble, that's all they're doomed to do so for the rest of their life. Depending on where they came from, they would sometimes use it alone to foretell the course of that person's life, especially if they were jailed. Everyone would be exactly where everyone else expects them to be if we were products of our environment, but if we are products of our expectations, we end up exactly where we expect to be based on the evidence of circumstances that have led to it and led us up to that point. Having this perspective of being apart from our anticipation is vastly different from being a product of our surroundings. Even while our environment does have a role in creating who we are, what we anticipate of ourselves, or the future that we see for ourselves, we eventually become the masters of our own destiny. I've been interning for almost two years and have had the opportunity to observe my kids both at home during Covid and in the classroom. Of course, certain children will exhibit a variety of behaviors and actions in the classroom, making it difficult to teach courses due to their outbursts and antics. The first thing that comes to mind is what is happening at home, what the atmosphere is like at home, but if we think about the child, put ourselves in their shoes, and attempt to think as they do, we will have a whole different perspective on how we perceive these behaviors. An example would be one of my kinder stars, (for the sake of confidentiality), I'll call him Tom. He has a history of outbursts when it comes to getting work done and gets irritated when he isn't called on to volunteer for the teacher.

Tom sees getting work done as a chance to color his dinosaur on his behavior chart, but it quickly becomes a difficulty when he realizes he won't have assistance next to him for the duration of the activity. His expectations then shift to telling himself that he's not going to accomplish it because it's too difficult and he wants to do something else. It establishes a direct relationship to his reactive behavior when it comes time to execute the task because of his expectations. However, if someone agrees to sit with him throughout the activity and assist him at specific periods when he actually needs it, he will be less reluctant. What he exhibits is what he expects of himself and the work. So, what are we expecting? How do we know if we'll be able to fulfill them? Or do you achieve them? If our expectations exceed our environment, then who we become should be entirely under our control. They each had distinct expectations, as West Moore said, and it was those expectations that got them where they were. They both grew up in comparable environments, yet their fates were completely different. Your choices are influenced by your expectations. Your decisions are linked to your expectations.

If you anticipate passing an exam, for example, your decisions leading up to that exam are linked to your expectations. They will come in conjunction. If you decide to study, you will meet the expectation that you will pass your test; if you decide to rob a grocery store, you will meet the expectation that you will be caught at some point.  Another topic that came to me when seeing this film was, "What is the quality of our expectations?" Is it realistic or unrealistic?  If we are products of our expectations, might it be that when things don't go as planned, it's because our expectations were unreasonable, being fabricated in a false mindset? Overall, whether we are products of our expectations or settings, we must remember that what we project might become who we are. Whatever we say has the same force as what we think. Let us live our lives in accordance.