Students, Parents, Teachers in School (Essay #1)

School and grades are a major part of life. Some students strive to make good grades, while others expect to be handed them, and still others just want to slide by with Ds to pass. With the students come their parents who have dreams for their children and want them to earn good grades, be handed good grades, and even those parents who don’t care one way or another. There are teachers today who give students the grades they earn, those who bump up grades some, and those who just hand them out freely for just doing the work.

In every school there are all different types of students. Most of my graduating class I would say just wanted to get by, graduate, go to the community college; that is like an extension of high school since 50 to 80% of every class goes there usually, or go into a trade-school. There are those students however that try their best to earn those A grades by studying, taking notes, paying attention in class, and doing homework. I was one of these students. Too prove my point about my class being in the just get by frame of mind, at the start of junior year only five students out of 100 students had a grade point average of three point five or higher. To me this was shocking especially considering the class of 2010 from the same high school who have had the same exact teachers had 17 students with a grade point average of three point five or higher going into their junior year. Of course almost all students wouldn’t mind being handed a grade occasionally for just having done the work but most students don’t expect this to happen often, especially students who worked super hard on something when someone who just scribbles stuff down gets the same grade.

When it comes to school and grades parents differ greatly. Some parents demand that their children earn straight As and take the upper level classes. These parents want their children to go to good universities in order to become doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, or other jobs that are looked at highly. Rarely a parent is found that expects teachers to give their child As just for attending class, handing in homework even if not necessarily right, and they may even expect that the teachers will curve all the tests or provide lots of assistance. More often than it should be parents are existing that do not care about their children’s education. They don’t offer to help them with homework or difficult school projects, ask how their day went at school, and usually don’t attend school functions. The children are the ones who suffer with parents like this.

Teachers either make students earn their grades, hand them out freely, or some do both. I have had teachers where if you do not study lots and lots, pay attention in class, take good notes, do every single assignment, and go to every class there is no way you could get an A in the class. While there aren’t many teachers to that extent teaching today, it does still happen. Usually you find more teachers that are willing to work with students to earn that desired A. They will occasionally take homework as completion if it was difficult, provide a curve on a test, let the class argue points back on a test, or will have extra credit opportunities available. This type of teachers is my favorite because if a student is putting forth the effort in class and on test but maybe had a little trouble with one chapter or isn’t a very good test taker they can still make an A or a B and have earned it. I have had one experience in my life that I had a teacher that handed out As to his class. My freshman year of high school I took a history class that was taught by the head football couch. On Mondays in class he would assign us the end of the section or the end of two sections’ questions to do while he sat at his desk and watched football film. Although he did require his students to keep a notebook with all the questions answered so he could call us up to look at our work. However, when I say look I really mean glance and if all the questions were answered he would give us the full amount of points. Sometimes certain students would write random sentences that weren’t about history and included the teacher’s name. He never noticed this. For his end of the year exam it was questions from our old test which he gave us to look at during class for a full week before exams. This younger teacher was forced to retire at the end of that year because of his teaching habits and other reasons. Teachers who want their students to earn their grades yet want them to still do well are the most popular and well liked teachers.

I agree with Suzzane Britt that not all students are earning the grades they are given but that’s not a reason to give up on the educational system and say that college is just like high school. I believe that super hard and super easy classes will always exist in every level of education, but by taking courses with a variety in difficultly the students are learning more and being less stressed.