Fear of failing a class in school is near extinction. There is no more drive to do the best a student can. A student putting forth the hard work necessary to learn and prosper in school is disappearing. Hard work, effort, priority, and responsibility are just some of the concepts that are lost among today’s youth. There is no drive to do ones best when no one really expects it. Unfortunately, the only ones cheated in the new world “pass everybody” epidemic is the youth. America’s new generation is being passed, grade after grade, without actually gaining the knowledge needed to flourish in life. Luckily, there are those individuals out there that do not want to sit around and watch American students obtain a diploma that is teetering on the edge on meaningless.
Mary Sherry, author of “In Praise of the “F” Word”, talks about the long forgotten concept of flunking students. Sherry teaches a remedial adult education course and sees students every semester who, unfortunately, did not obtain the necessary knowledge in school to further his or her education beyond high school successfully. Sherry also tells the story of her own sons experience in high school with a teacher that refused to let the minimum slide by like so many other teachers would. Sherry’s words are encouraging to the future, because she accepted the rules of an educator even though it could have hurt her own son which many parents would not have done. Sherry realized that while wanting to protect her family from negative experiences, the fear of failure would give her son a better future.
The threat of flunking has to be real to inspire the student. Jacob Neusner’s essay, “The Speech the Graduates Didn’t Hear”, is a great example of false threats and ha...
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...nowledge than their peers and will pass down their lack of desire for education to their children. The cycle will continue unless there is something set forth to stop it. Education needs to become the first priority for students, teachers, and parents. Teachers should not be afraid to fail and student that did not show significant growth within his or her class. Parents should not intervene when a teacher does fail a child because of embarrassment or pride. And lastly, students must make education the most important part of his or her life. Learning needs to come before fun which, unfortunately, seems like a foreign concept to most youths today. There is so much more to gain from a proper education than just how to solve algebraic equations. When are we ever going to use this information in the real world? The answer to this question is simple, everyday.
Luigie Olmos Instructor: Danielle Panto English 105 November 28, 2016 Reaching For A Better Education Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” (2016). Mandela’s says that education is very powerful, you can use education to change the world or your life. This means that education is important in life and we all need a good education to succeed in life. In our society education is failing because schools demand too much for a great career. For example, schools take too much time to graduate and after we finish school there is no guaranteed employment. Therefore, students are dropping out of school and are going to the workforce or military. We could make education better for students
From the beginning of high school, students strap on their seatbelts and prepare for one of the most vigorous races of their lives – becoming successful. With the rare occurrence of a break, kids are expected to keep on driving as fast and as powerfully as they can in order to get into a “great” college, which would be followed by graduate school and then an actual job that would make a lot of money. In American society, common values include working hard, determination, and being so productive that free time is not even a question. However, this philosophy is taking a major toll on American college and high school students. For at least 40 years, America’s future has been steadily growing unmotivated, tired, and hopeless due to the overemphasis on performing well in school. This phenomenon is appropriately expounded in William Zinsser’s “College Pressures”, which takes a look at the top four sources of tension that cause these feelings of dejection and agitation. After reading this article, I came up with a few solutions to this national problem. It is time to switch the harsh, over-encouraging green light of education to a comfortable yellow one. In order to make this ideal transition, directors of education across the country need to primarily reduce the amount of out-of-class assignments, lighten the grading system, and incorporate days in the school year that allow students to express their thoughts about school and provide useful feedback.
An F is a grade that many students fear of obtaining in their school career, unless the student does not care about his or her education. In Carl Singleton’s article, What Our Education Needs is More F’s, Singleton expresses his belief that if students begin to receive more F’s, students would be working harder to earn good grades, parents would become more considerate of their child’s education, and teachers would be stricter and harsher when grading. Therefore, education systems requiring teachers to frequently give more F’s will fix the “inadequacies of American education,” or so Singleton believes. (Singleton). Unfortunately, Singleton’s plan if enforced, would have several negative effects to it, such as; students’ motivation would instead diminish rather than accelerate, students would not
How will this growing problem be fixed, not only in the United States but the world as well? One important action is to continue the effort to improve schools worldwide. Schools in poorer areas of districts would benefit from a greater number of better trained teachers and faculty. Other actions to help improve schools would be to add more leadership and extracurricular activities, encourage students to focus and stay in school, and making things such as school lunch and recess better. It is important to have students enjoy being at school and enjoy learning, otherwise they'll lose intere...
Those students with meaningless diplomas are the ones who have been cruising along even though they do not truly understand the materials that were taught to them. Those students that plainly do not understand the material taught to them make excuses. Teachers see these student’s excuses as a lack of attention and fail those students but instead all those students needed were a bit of guidance. It takes a teacher's involvement to understand, not a teacher's threat. Sherry argues that our educational system is to blame for cheating those students out of a proper education.
Mary Sherry talks about students who failed or just got by in school in the article “In Praise Of the F Word”. The fear of failing will only get people as far as they are willing to go if they are truly trying to better themselves it makes sense that failing would be a motivator. On the other hand, some people don’t care at all and failing is just part of their vocabulary. Mary reflects on how “high-school graduates and drop outs pursuing graduate-equivalency certificates will learn the skills they should have learned in school”. (1) For a lot of people the realization comes after they are out of school and realize that one of the only ways to move up and make more money is more education. Failing is only as affective as someone makes it the more serious someone takes failing the higher their chances of getting higher grades.
We blame and label professors, parents, and peers as ‘villains,’ when there are no “villains only victims (465).” Students have now become self-destructive, perfect seeking freaks. There is now this extra emphasis on looking better and being what everyone wants. A student’s “transcript has become a sacred document, the passport to security (464).” The security referenced before is the need to have a good paying job and money to spend. Student’s stress that grades have become a marking of what kind of person they are such as, “A is for admirable, and B is for border line (465).” Through the use of metaphors, Zinsser shows that students are so obsessed with being the best that they aren’t thinking about other possibilities and are so driven to succeed following their single-minded
A look back at the institution of education over the past 20 years will reveal that once upon a time a bachelor’s degree was long since considered the marker of ultimate success, the highest level of achievement that one could make in their lives. In those days, if for some reason you failed to march across the stage on graduation day after an epic, four-year stretch of high tuition, long nights studying, and unrelenting professors that found great joy in riding your back, then you had indeed failed at life.
Another reason why the assignment of failing grades has decreased is the influence of the self-esteem movement, which promotes the assumption that children who do not have a positive self-image cannot learn or develop properly. Although this theory is widely accepted, it has been discredited by several studies. Recent research shows that, although American students felt more confident about themselves and their work, they were outperformed by several Asian countries on tests of elementary skills. American schools and teachers tend to worry more about the student’s self-esteem than the actual academic performance (Leo, “Damn” 21). Mary Sherry, a teacher of adult literacy programs, does not believe such theories. Her view is that students become motivated by the threat of failure, and that not failing a student not only shows lack of confidence on the teacher’s behalf, but also hurts the society as a whole. Employees are becoming highly disappointed with so-called “graduate” students (8).
Today, schools are making it a priority for teachers to follow the strict guidelines of a “one size fits all testing curriculum.” Educators must prepare students for the tests that could make or break their future. This curriculum is focused only on teaching students what they need to know in order to pass the test. “Because the test is based largely on the memorization of facts, teachers will have to teach their students these specific facts instead of teaching for deep comprehension and understanding of material.” (Martin, 309) As a result, students do not learn the true lesson. Although it is highly important that students pass “the test,” this strictly based curriculum is ignoring the important academic skills and fundamentals needed for their future, even beyond the years of high stakes testing; without these needed skills students will be left in the dark once they have graduated from high school. Students often learn on different levels and their educational requirements are not being met with the “one size fits all” approach. Those who create these tests tend not to include those who learn on a different educational level; rather their focus is pointed towards the money rather than on the success of all students. Children need to learn sk...
‘I am going to fail’ was the very first thought that crept into my mind on that very first day of class. Before I stepped into the classroom on the first day, I felt pretty good about my writing. I had done previously well in English, and didn’t think this class would be much of a challenge. This all changed on the first day of school, when my professor talked about the level of reading and writing expected for this class. I remember thinking ‘I don’t read, why couldn’t I have been born someone who likes to read?!’ Since this moment on the very first day of class, I have grown immensely through hard work. In this essay, I will explain what I have learned over the course of this class about myself, and about writing.
In today’s competitive world students are more focused on the grade that will be obtained at the end of the course and not concerned with actually leaning about the subject at hand. Students want to obtain a 4.0 GPA and make sure they made good use of the thousands of dollars spend on tuition. According to author Bill Coplin, in his essay, “Lost in the Life of the Mind” he states that “most students and their parents will pay as much as $160,000 only if they believe a college experience will lead to a better economic future” but as we all know it, a high education sometimes leads nowhere. With the high competition in the work force students have to take low paying jobs that are irrelevant to their career
Schools across America told their pupils to get good grades or they will never get out of their hometowns and experience the world. Schools drilled into student’s heads that if they don’t study and make it to the top ten, they will be a nobody. I have to disagree with my school’s philosophy. As film director Stanley Kubrick once said, “I think the big mistake in schools is […] using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a
People usually afraid of failure because they tried to do something and failed, or took a risk and it didn’t pay off, or made a decision and it turned out to be the wrong one. That fear of failure create the stress and anxiety when people want to do something hard or try something new. Just because you tried something two or three time and failing does not mean the entire idea is a mistake. Do you expect to get a Blackjack on every game that you played? That would be an impossible thing to do. There is no success that comes without failure, where failure is experiences and lessons that help you to perfect your works. People should overcome their fear of failure and use failure as a tool to work toward their success because failing is so important
A flower does not get to choose its garden, and neither does a child his birthplace, but taking advantage of the opportunities given should be a priority in any human. Nonetheless here in the land of the free too often the words, “I cannot understand my teacher, I am going to drop.” Or “This is too hard, I will take it next semester” enter the thoughts of the youth of America. In other words, these phrases characterize the mentally weak society that has been corrupted by overindulgence. In this case some of these kids do not even grasp the concept of work ethic; understanding how hypocritical this may sound coming from a college student, an undeniable truth must be stated. Higher education is no longer a privilege to obtain enlightenment. Instead