They will be able to control their emotions and not become a slave to the system. Who is a slave to the system? If you collapse at a C in class, or hide your grade from other people, or have so much work you get no time to yourself, you have been corrupted. If you can let school impact your life this much, you dont have one. Your life is created by a balance of things. School, family, friends, and yourself. When one goes bad you should be able to rely on a positive from another one of these groups. If you cant be happy with what you are, what your are capable of, and how good you can do something, then you will never be happy or satisfied with yourself. When teachers see that students start slipping, and letting there grades fall, there should be special attention given.
Questions asked, there should be some conversation. I see too many times teachers not giving the support to students, even when they try, so they give up and rely on other ways to pass the class. Freshman year had history with one of my friends. He was doing great in the class when all of a sudden his grade started to fall. He got his final grade as a D. The sad part was that when he got that D he started crying. He told me that he really tried, he studied every night and he still couldnt get a good grade. There was no support from the teacher, and he never told me his grades from his tests. If the teacher asked him why he was slipping maybe he could have done better. A teacher should want his students to succeed not watch them fail. Maybe they need to take a class on that.
I will never forget my friends words, ” but Mister Brown I tried my hardest and I still got a D. Why?” As I said before academics is only one aspect of school. A teacher should teach students that it is okay to make mistakes and fail. It took 39 different model airplanes before the Wright brothers got one off the ground. The idea I hope to express is that your grade may not reflect what you know but how well you can B.S. your way through your class and sometimes even how much the teacher even cares about you. This year I am so lucky to have a teacher that knows nothing about what he is teaching. There was not one A in his class this last semester, and he has just finished grading the first page of a three page test and told the class that just from the results of grading this first page no one will be able to get even a B on the test. I ask myself what this idiot is thinking. Maybe he is not teaching the students the material.
Incompetence is an issue when it comes to teachers. Who can teach and who cant. It is too late to change anything now, but out of 26 kids in this class 17 had Ds and Fs on the semester report card. I dont think anyone else realizes it but he doesnt know the material himself. When questions are asked, he tells the students to wait till tomorrow so he can ask another teacher how to do the problem. The idea behind school is to have someone so advanced in a subject, that he could share his knowledge with others and teach them. Many teachers break this philosophy. An evaluation system for teachers should be made. One that not only analyzes a teachers performance during a single day, but maybe a five-week period. An official cannot evaluate how a teacher is teaching by visiting for one day, this is the current system I see being practiced.
An official must see how his interaction with students are, his clarity in explaining material, and his style of teaching the material. What really matters, above all, is if the students learn the material, and only they can tell you that first hand. After sophomore year I become a pro at what I did. Repeat did. At this point I had learned how to pass classes with minimum work. For some reason, the way school was supposed to go, didnt apply to me. I think it was because I thought too much about why I should do the work. Now junior year started. The most important year in high school. I was called into my counselors office and was basically told what chances I have at which colleges. Something had hit me right there and then. If this person knew so much about colleges and how to get in, and how to be successful, then why is she a counselor? Maybe she loves kids, okay, but that is the only reason I could come up with for her to want that job. All she does for me is put me in my classes and summons me when I am a problem, but not once was a called in for merit or recognition when, really, I have done wonderful things at this school. I decided not to care about what my counselor said to me. The belief that good grades will take me far vanished completely.
Now I just pass for credit. What the school fails to notice is that there are more acknowledgements for bad things students do then good. Motivation is the key for wanting to work hard. When people are constantly disciplined from grade school and up, they get no chance to explain their position. They except the punishment and learn to be tossed around. If you cant stand up for what you know is right then you will always just be another face in the crowd. “Youre damned if you do and youre damned if you dont.” William Hiatt. I dont know how clear this all is, if it makes any sense, or if you understand it, but from all my experiences, I never leave without a lesson. “Knowledge is power. I am a thief. I want to steal all the information. For what? For power.” Higher Learning. My dad has told me that I have lost control, I have no direction, and he wonders where his A student went.
The school tells me that I have gone down hill and that I lost my chance at good universities. My friends tell me that I am a slacker, lazy, and that they see me running a casino or doing some con artist business in the future. I am the product of a superficial school system. A system that not only basis its grades on actual knowledge but upon negotiations as well. As long as these negotiations are made grades mean nothing. What matters is what you know and actually learn. If can do what you want to do, then do it. If you cant, learn how. Even this essay, I could have gotten someone to write it for me or found one somewhere on the Internet. I probably could have gotten a good grade too.
But much like the education system needs to be reformed, in more then one way, so have I. You havent heard about my senior year yet. At first I was continuing my pattern from prior years. But one teacher acknowledged what I was doing. I decided to do all my work legitimately. This is proof that teachers can influence their students to be better, not only academically, but in the sense that they should put effort into their grade, sometimes. As a final thought you should think about what you are working for and what you want to do it for. Dont let school get the best of. If you hyperventilate over a grade relax, in this system you can always talk your way up.
