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If this is you, at least you’re getting something out of school. No one else is.| ShutterStock.com
A recent study shows that 37 percent of eighth graders say their math work is often or always “too easy” and 39 percent of twelfth graders say they rarely write about what they read in class. Interestingly enough, American students generally perform worse than students in other industrial nations? Another eyeroll, another, “Duh!”
I could go on a huge rant about this school’s public education system, but most of you are living the nightmare. (I promise college is nothing like high school. It’s really the only reason why you should suck it up and do that lame homework–you don’t want to miss how awesome and life changing college is academically and socially!)
I can’t say for sure that the reason kids do poorly in school is because they are bored. I can just recount my experience in New York City public schools and then ask you guys: Would you even bother in these scenarios?
Senior year of high school I had an English teacher who would literally stop and define every single word we were reading because she clearly thought we were morons. I am not talking hundred dollar words like “antiestablishmentarianism”, I mean words like “vital” and “intriguing”. It’s OK if you don’t know what those words mean now, but you will by senior year of high school after you’ve taken the SAT or ACT. It felt condescending. If she didn’t expect me to know anything then why bother? She thinks I’m stupid anyway, right?
I had another teacher, my favorite teacher in the whole world who taught AP English, ask me, “How is it possible that you’re so literate? Coming from . . . where you come from?” He didn’t even understand why posing the question at all was insulting.
In Junior High I went to the sixth worst middle school in New York City. I remember we went through three English teachers in a month because they couldn’t “control” the classroom, oh, and they didn’t bother to teach.
I had a History teacher who would literally give us a copy of the test two nights before–with the answers!
This is what we’re working with? I don’t think so. | ShutterStock.com
In New York City you have to apply to high school and be accepted into it (yeah more annoying stress). Even though I had a 99.6/100 GPA, I was rejected from every high school I applied to and sent to my zoned school (the worst high school in New York City) just because my middle school had one of the worst reputations ever. I literally had to beg and go to summer school to get into the decent high school I went to.
In elementary school one teacher was arrested for working under a stolen identity–he was pretending to be someone else–he wasn’t a qualified teacher at all!
What’s the consistent problem in this picture? No one expects us to do well? To be smart? No one demands that we rise to the occasion! No one sets the bar higher! If you don’t believe I am smart, then how I am supposed believe it? If you come into a classroom, as a teacher, with the expectations that I am dumb–why should I impress you? You don’t even know me and you’re telling me I should be reading Goosebumps instead of Shakespeare?
Not only is it hurtful, not only can it affect someone’s self-esteem, but boy does it ever make school really boring. You’re showing me Dora The Explorer and Blues Clues and asking me to learn something? Screw you, teach.
It sucks to admit, but the only thing that motivated me in high school was the hope that there was something better after. If you’re in a situation like mine was, let that be your guiding light too.
I just wish people expected more from teens. Being young or from a certain neighborhood doesn’t mean you’re dumb, you may not have had certain experiences, but that does not mean you lack the ability to think critically, to be savvy, and to be witty as all hell.
Do you think school is too easy? Let us know in the comments
GAHH So Happy!
At my middle school the Pre-AP classes do the exact same work as the regular classes….
I totally understand this. I live in Puerto Rico, and even the system is different, it SUCKS! My last yesr in middle school, in 9th grade, the first class I had was science. The teacher was nice but she would begin the class 30 minutes late! Always! Then she really doesn’t teach science,like is not what she studied for. I remember a girl’s mom went in the classroom and the two of her talked all the hour of class. I was just like ”Really?”.
Then is this Spanish teacher that we would have days without having her class because she was doing ”work”. And when we did have her class,you could see that she would asign stuff from the book for us to do, and she would be talking in her cellphone and in the internet. One time she gave us a pressentation and we saw that she was on Facebook. People say that teens are adicted to technology, but as you see, we are not the only ones here… I have told my mom to go live in USA to look for a better school and life. But she can’t as she don’t have that money to do all that stuff and begin again
I go to public school in a rural area, and my high school sucks. My English teacher this past year(10th Grade) stayed on Lord Of The Flies for four (4!!) months. She beat that book to death when we should have been finished with it in a month. My PE teacher two years ago(9th Grade) let kids get bullied in her class. And my Biology Teacher in 9th Grade called me and my friends a “bunch of freaks”. In 8th Grade, I had an English Teacher who lied to me about a poem I had written for my Uncles when they were deployed to Iraq that it one first place in a contest. I was mad when she said she “made a mistake” and I got in trouble for attitude when I told her that my Uncles were very disappointed in her for getting the whole batallion excited.
I could go on and on about my school, I have plenty of stories. I’m annoyed though, that the Pre-AP and AP classes are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY Easy.
I go to school in Australia. There are two levels of school: Primary & Highschool. Primary goes from the age of 5-13, while highschool goes from 13-18 (depending on the year you were born. During Primary School i went to two different schools, school number one i found to be quite easy for many years (but it wasn’t constantly simple, i would thrown some challenging work now and then), but i did have a teacher when i was 11 that absolutely changed my way of thinking about everything, i’ve learnt to be more observant and take everything into account in everyday life and different situations, and he was a very abstract teacher, so his classes were never boring and were quite challenging at times, but once i had finished that class i would always feel content with what i had acheived, i had actually learnt something! Unlike other previous classes where it were just photocopied work sheets. When i was 12 we moved to school number two. I found the work to be SO EASY, but it was understandable why as i was in a class full of very stupid people (just being honest). I would always add that extra bit on to my work as i new i could do better than what was expected, i’ve always tried to be an over achiever, yet once i had gotten my grade report all my grades except for Art and Music (which were A’s) were B’s, which i was quite upset about. At my previous school i would always get A’s for the major subjects like English, Maths and Science, yet at this school, which i had thought had standards much lower than my previous school to accomodate for the other students, was actually the same as my previous school (i then found out that those students got mostly D’s). I realise that now as my teacher from when i was 11 had told us that all schools have to follow a certain chart to help them grade based on what they have been taught, so if the teacher hadn’t taught them that certain criteria then they couldn’t be graded on that and graded down. I’m quite angry at that fact, if you weren’t taught it, too bad, your still being graded on it, which was what my teacher had done. She always would give us the same sort of photocopied sheets and not really properly teaching what we needed to lern. I’m so lucky now in highschool that the work that is given is grades properly and that the teacher teach what is needed to get to that standard. I personally believe that teachers do need to step up and work to the highest standard like what they’ve been telling all students ever since the first day of school.
Where I live in Canada, education is a JOKE. Honestly, this year the school division changed normal grading system to a stupid “rubric system” for all grades up to grade eight. In grade nine, you get half normal grades and half “rubric” grades. For example, you get an “EX” if you are “exceeding grade level”, “ME” if you are “meeting grade level”, “WA” if you are “with assistance” and “NY” if you are “not yet meeting grade level”. Basically, it’s like elementary school grading. And the weird part: last year wasn’t like this. Last year I was in grade seven, the first year you go in to the highschool/middle school (we have two schools K-6 and 7-12), I won the gold medal for acedemics as well as $50 for it, and this year I won another gold, but this year more than one person could get a gold, you don’t get a medal just a certificate, and we didn’t even win prize money. That is sooooo unfair to me, because I work very very hard in school but it is so easy to get a gold medal- even this one girl got a gold medal this year and she is STUPID. She didn’t even get on the honor roll last year, and trust me, she didn’t even try to pick up her socks a bit this year.
What I think the purpose of this new grading system is, although the school division says it’s supposed to “get both teachers and parents more connected and involved in the students education”, is that they just don’t want hurt the not-so-bright students feelings. And that won’t help the students any because one day they’ll be told the cold reality. Plus, they’ve added to the website so your parents can log on and see your report card at any time, as well as if you have any assignments not done. they don’t realize that they are making it so that we are no longer responsible for remembering to do homework, then our parents will tell us hat we have to do it, and even if we don’t get it done there is no more consequences anymore, meaning we don’t have to care because we will pass automatically as well.
School is sooooo boring for me especially in math because this year my teacher didn’t plan anythig out, she took two or three months for one unit and I coulda done it in one to two weeks, so at the end of the year we had two or three days to learn each unit. The same teacher also explains every paragraph to us when we are reading together…. It’s so annoyig and she treats us dumb.
I go to Public school but In Boston, MA..
So it’s different for me since my town is the Capitol for the best public schools and High schools..
I don’t Understand where you come from though..
Because my English Teacher always gave us challenges we won’t face until College or high school..
We did Public Speaking and Other things..
But Some people I know who go to school in Other districts Get things WAY TOO EASY..
Like they stay on the same topic for month..
While I hardly stay less then a week in 2 topics..
So I don’t know how it feels not to be Challenged because I’m challenged everyday in school..
But I see people who aren’t as challenged as me who know less then half the things I know.
And I go to public school
Ugh- In 5th grade, I had this horrible math teacher who pretty much only taught us that she was the biggest dumb***. Then this year, we didn’t get an advanced LA class until after Christmas. So, I was stuck with a bunch idiots who didn’t the the meaning of “infer” (sadly, one of the was my BFF). It’s so stupid. Then my brothers SS teacher (a good one) was going to get fired because he hid a kid in his classroom because a bully was chasing him- but they won’t fire the teachers who aren’t DOING THEIR JOB and TEACHING
I totally get this. In middle school you could literally turn in all your work the last day of the quarter and still get an A. Its kind of pathetic. At my HS now there are teachers who give the study guide with the answers on the test and then they let you use on the the test. Thankfully I didn’t have him cause all those kids pretty much failed the AP exam. It really is kind of sad
This is why I ended up going to a specialized high school. We focus on engineering, medical studies, and graphic design. I had so little expected of me in middle school it was frustrating- I passed all but one of my classes with an ‘A’. The other I got a ‘D’ in because the teacher was so monotone and terrible at his job that I never payed attention.
Sometimes, high school is too easy too.The teachers seem to not care most of the time. In the middle of last year, we had two teachers quit within three days of each other. One for a job at the better funded school across town, the other because she had problems with one of the students. They replaced them with two lazy ass 22-year-olds who didn’t even finish grading our stuff before the grade book closed at the end of the year. I wrote an essay for no reason.
Part of the reason for the public school’s system utter and complete failure in teaching kid’s properly is the “no child left behind program”. While I know that it had good intentions when it started, it has turned America’s children into complete idiots. And punishing those schools and teachers that do not have a successful pass/fail rating is not helping the situation in the least. I am currently in college to become an English/Lit teacher but not to teach at the high school level. They are basically instructed to babysit for 7-8 hours a day. Not worth my time! I will gladly teach at the college level for people who are paying to be there.
I hear you, I had some horrible teachers, especially in elementary school. My parents never understood why I didn’t want to go to school. Not to say there where some really good teachers, but still, I didn’t really learn much in the classes with the bad teachers.
Public schools are generally really easy. I’ve been in public schools my whole life, and while the schools I’ve been attending have stellar honours programs and lots of Science and Math programs, it’s still sad how many teachers treated us like toddlers – in the honours programs. Even in the AP programs, teachers expected so little out of their students. I had an English teacher this year, she taught honours and AP English for the tenth and twelfth grade, respectively. A lot of my friends had her for the tenth grade course and my brother (along with a lot of people in my school’s literature club) had her for the twelfth grade course. Everyone agreed that she was the worst teacher they’ve ever had. She would assign us three pages of a book – ONLY THREE PAGES (god forbid we read ahead) – and tell us to define thirty words we didn’t know before. Thirty. 3-0. In three pages. That’s ten words a page. And we have to ask at least ten questions about the book. All in three pages. Now, I think it’s understandable if it’s Shakespeare or an anthology of high-level poetry, but when it’s one of those dumb stories in the English books that haven’t been updated in ten years and a majority of the words are four letters long, there’s not that many words I can define. And here’s the great part: if we don’t define thirty words, we get no credit for the assignment. Same with the questions. Well, sorry, but I’ve read this story five times since fifth grade, I don’t have any more questions and I sure as hell know what words like “humble” and “integrity” mean.
You would think she would the AP class better. WRONG! All she did was tell them to take the AP exam and give them feeble vocab tests. All. Year. Long. The stories they told in Lit Club were sad. I really hope she’s not the only AP English 12 teacher by the time I’m a senior.
That’s only one teacher. I’ve had quite a few like that. American public schools need to step up! Quit complaining about low test scores and low achievement rate and actually CHANGE something about the Education system.
since i don’t go to a public school, i can’t relate on some of the things, but yeah. sometimes school is wayyyyyy too easy. and when you answer a question in something as easy as history, everyone looks at you like, “how do you know that?!” i mean come on. it bothers me that some people don’t know the simplest things. one girl in my class asked TWICE what a model t ford was. i mean, honestly. some people these days.