It isn’t easy being a teenager in 2007 – no one underestimates that. A popular belief these days is that acceptance into a prestigious college is a ticket to a great life, and working for that acceptance begins in high school. With so many students academically (though not necessarily mentally, physically, or emotionally) prepared for college, students are pushed to take the most rigorous classes and excel in them. Anything less is unthinkable.
In such a predicament, is it any surprise that us students pour our energies into obtaining good grades, even at the expense of actual interest in a subject?
You’ve probably heard of this problem before, just as you’ve probably heard someone in your math class ask, “Will this stuff be on the test?” According to AHS math teacher Marguerite Buck-Bauer, students often care solely about material that determines their grade – everything else is irrelevant. She avoids answering such questions because, “You can see doors close in students’ minds whenever you give a response.”
For students, such questions aren’t absurd. Many learn material for a test and a grade, and eventually bring home their grades to their parents, which can be a scary or rewarding experience. Even the most fearless, daredevil kids quiver at the prospect of receiving The Glare when they reveal their report cards, and will go to all extremes to avoid it. Despite the grade-grubbing, many students do care about the subject they’re learning. They’re just unwilling to sacrifice their scores to risk learning without numerical benefits. The boot-stomping, nostril-flaring, I’m-disappointed-in-you totalitarian academic regime at home is just that frightening.
Another age-old argument covers AP and Honors classes, with teachers, students, and parents alike condemning the courses for pressuring kids. Elisabeth Klein, an AHS math teacher, believes that such learning is a double-edged sword. On one hand, such courses are likely to contain more “Will this stuff be on the test?” students. On the other hand, the classes do provide more learning opportunities than regular classes. Said Klein of her Honors and AP classes, “Each student brings something new and different to the class, and one student’s question might help another student.”
For AP English teacher Gloria Sims, her students, in general, are equally motivated by grades and interest. There always are a select few who would go to any length to obtain an A – even plagiarism – but overall, the discussions are strong and the love for literature is there. She’d love to have a class full of “People who love literature – can’t get enough of it.” but said it’d be rare if none of them cared about their grades.
It’d be nice if the world were perfect and everyone did things because they cared, but the cow hasn’t jumped over the moon, the spoon hasn’t run away with whatever it was suppose to run away with, and conspiring agencies like the CollegeBoard (“People who hate kids,” according to an anonymous senior acquaintance) still exist. And so do nagging parents. And those three tests next week.
You gaiy.
I can’t agree more with this article. An anonymous associate of mine, who is already quite fluent in Chinese Mandarin, made the so-very-beneficial and so-very-needed decision of taking Mandarin 1 this year in ninth grade. Excellent grades? Obviously. But grades aren’t the reason we study for. We study for intelligence and for knowledge, not to score high upon a subject with as much meaning as spending one hour standing in a corner and spacing out.
This reminds me of a delightful quote in Chinese Reader’s Digest, the Chinese version of the popular American magazine in which discusses in-depth philosophy and life insight. “American students take tests for their learning, and Chinese students learn for their testing. To take tests for learning is to have tests serve learning, and to learn for testing is to have learning serve tests.”
Apparently American high schools aren’t as “American” as I thought that they would be. Learning in China is awfully competitive, harsh, difficult, and typically results in quite some suicide rates from failed attempts to get into the few scarce college positions available and the intense, intense pressure from parents and peers and self. I had came to America purely for the purpose of avoiding China’s academical outrage and pursue my own interests and desires, but turns out that America wasn’t extremist in purity of liberation. Then again, it’s still better compared to China that for that we should be proud to be here. Practically every student in China’s parents dream of their child studying in the United States.
The system is good enough. The existence of tests and quizzes gives us a reason to study for, and parents are there to help you stay on track. Otherwise we probably aren’t mentally developed well enough as adolescents to make the best choices. It’s a wonderfully realistic world of realists where perfection is nothing but an illusion. And there’s wonderfully harsh punishments for copying and cheating to ensure that it won’t take place much. It’s a joyeous thing to be in the United States.