Why do schools do this?

[kevinguy247]

When I was in third grade, a bunch of kids in my class were called down to a special room to take a special test, myself included. After we took the test we found out that it was to find out who was going to be accepted into the school's "Enriched" program. I at the time had one of the highest averages in my grade, however, I did not get accepted into the enriched program. I found out later that I had gotten one, literally, ONE single question more than was acceptable wrong. Because I had gotten one question wrong, I wasn't as good as my peers.

After that test, my grades consistently sank and sank to the point where I'm barely going to be passing high school. And I acknowledge that's my lack of motivation that's doing that, but I realized recently that the reason I'm not motivated is because that day I lost all respect for the public school system. I have never had a confidence problem. I know I'm intelligent. But because I got one question wrong on a test, the public school system doesn't agree. All they care about are numbers and test scores and ridiculous things to get more funding. Why should I work hard for a system that only sees me as a number? A system that shut out a perfectly capable student because of one wrong answer.

But now, as I'm nearing college, I'm doing it again. My third marking period of my junior year is almost over and it's too late for me to really change anything. The damage has been done and my grades are not going to be good enough to get me into a lot of schools, and now I'm making myself crazy about my future because ONCE AGAIN I've let the public school system tell me about my own self worth. They know nothing about the worth of a human being. And yet, they make a business of telling kids that every day.

Why do we allow schools to do this? Why don't we change? Have schools really beaten us all that much that we won't even fight it after we graduate? Discuss.

[Tiffany]

People let schools get away with this because, in the simplest terms, they don't think they can do anything about it. They see the education system as something massive that overpowers everyone and they can't change a single thing- even if that thing hurts people (or even has the potential to).

[Rob]

Bottom line is: schools (teachers) need to figure out how to take things like the event that happened to you and turn it into motivation instead of depression. There are psychological techniques to achieve this, but as your story insinuates, they need to be started right away (elementary school).

They also need to strongly encourage or require students to participate in things outside of school more. They need to make you realize that it is actually YOU who needs to find the thing to motivate you. There's always a choice involved and your previous experience influenced you to make the "bad choices" you made to land you where you are.

And just to clear a bit up, yes, I'm one of those people that leans towards the individual being at fault rather than society. This is mostly because I believe everything always has a choice. And I also believe that innate human nature points us to the "right" choice but societal pressures make us question our own nature. But that's a whole side-talk that I do not wish to derail this thread with.

Finally, sure, maybe your grades bumped you out of getting into whatever school you wanted right away, but they won't matter soon. If you don't get into the university you want, go to a branch campus or community college. From there, you can transfer over, and your high school grades won't matter at all. Only what you've done on the college level will matter. Just remember: you ALWAYS have options when it comes to education after high school.

[OhLovelyOlivia]

I definately sympathize with you Kevinguy, somehting very similar happened to me. It definately made me quite bitter towards the school I graduated from, but that is why I feel like education reform is so important. Students don't really have any business being treated special, like the kids in the "enriched" class at my school. Those students took special field trips and got time out of class to play games.

I see why some districts think this is a good thing, but the way they select the students is not always without some bias or influence. I understand they're just trying to take intelligent children and give them unique opportunities, but when other children are left at the wayside it goes beyond helping a select group at the cost of children who might needs extra attention. Children who might not grow into the intellectuals they could have become because they didn't get into some special class.

[RabbitWho]

Ha ha, you're complaining about not being put into the "enriched" program. I was put in with the "Remedial" - borderline mentally disabled kids just because I was "Dyslexic" They couldn't even read or talk properly and I was reading Jane frikin Eyre at the time. It's great that class and all that support was there for them, by the time they were in secondary school you'd never have known they got off to a slow start (Kids develop at different speeds, they were probably really good at something else when they were younger) . But it certainly didn't help me.
The teacher was really nice though so I didn't mind, and eventually they caught on and they let me go back with the average kids.
It's so mad.. oh look.. this girl keeps getting 0 on her spelling tests.. let's segregate her and make her read books for 3 year olds. Huggy Bear.. I hate you Huggy Bear!

They have mentioned a particular test quite a few times on TED, but i've never seen a specific study of it so if anyone knows about it I'd love if they could show me.. Anyway they told all the A students they got Ds and put them into a D class, and by the end of the term they really were getting Ds, and they took all the D students and told them they got As and put them into an A class (They never told the teachers about the switch, that's important) and at the end of the term the D students were getting As.
Anyone know what I'm talking about and have a link to some more info about it?

[kevinguy247]

It's so funny, that experiment is exactly the way it is in REAL life. They treat us like lab rats! Trying to squeeze the most out of us like we're some genetic experiment with no regard to how it makes US feel or whether or not our potential lies somewhere else! I'm so sick of being told I'm not good enough based on just ONE standard. I'm sick of being marginalized and conformed and being stuffed into a round hole when I'm clearly a square peg! It just doesn't make sense!!!

[mashuga31]

Apr 8, 2010 18:43:57 GMT -5 RabbitWho said:

Ha ha, you're complaining about not being put into the "enriched" program. I was put in with the "Remedial" - borderline mentally disabled kids just because I was "Dyslexic" They couldn't even read or talk properly and I was reading Jane frikin Eyre at the time. It's great that class and all that support was there for them, by the time they were in secondary school you'd never have known they got off to a slow start (Kids develop at different speeds, they were probably really good at something else when they were younger) . But it certainly didn't help me.
The teacher was really nice though so I didn't mind, and eventually they caught on and they let me go back with the average kids.
It's so mad.. oh look.. this girl keeps getting 0 on her spelling tests.. let's segregate her and make her read books for 3 year olds. Huggy Bear.. I hate you Huggy Bear!

They have mentioned a particular test quite a few times on TED, but i've never seen a specific study of it so if anyone knows about it I'd love if they could show me.. Anyway they told all the A students they got Ds and put them into a D class, and by the end of the term they really were getting Ds, and they took all the D students and told them they got As and put them into an A class (They never told the teachers about the switch, that's important) and at the end of the term the D students were getting As.
Anyone know what I'm talking about and have a link to some more info about it?

<sympathizes

I was almost put in a "special" class for "special" teenagers. "special" of course being the mentally unstable. I had brain surgery in February last year and when I got back to school in september they treated me like I was (no offense) retarded! Sure i'd skate through highschool if I was put in that class but I spoke up and said NO! I'm not going to be put in a class with people who can't function properly just because you think I'm messed up! When I first started out I was getting bad grades because of the demoralization they put me through, but my grades have gradually gone up from Fs and Ds to four As a B and a C.

I hate schools.

[Deleted]

hmm, I'm guessing that either the Belgian school system is a lot different or I just didn't encounter these problems :/
We had extra classes in elementary school for kids who had trouble reading and if you couldn't keep the pace, you were suggested to double a grade, but we didn't have special classes etc.

[zAkAtAk]

Apr 8, 2010 19:32:31 GMT -5 kevinguy247 said:

I'm sick of being marginalized and conformed and being stuffed into a round hole when I'm clearly a square peg

You have quite the unique member there.

[RabbitWho]

Ha ha zak, you've only got one thing on your mind and it's in your signature!

[zAkAtAk]

Apr 9, 2010 8:14:05 GMT -5 RabbitWho said:

Ha ha zak, you've only got one thing on your mind and it's in your signature!

I'm a 20 year old boy. I'm allowed to be this way.

[kevinguy247]

Apr 9, 2010 7:34:15 GMT -5 zAkAtAk said:

Apr 8, 2010 19:32:31 GMT -5 kevinguy247 said:

I'm sick of being marginalized and conformed and being stuffed into a round hole when I'm clearly a square peg

You have quite the unique member there.

I laughed at that. Literally. Thank you.

[jaw]

My bio told me that Colleges look for "Well-rounded" students. What this means is that they look at your community hours, exra activities etc. instead of looking at your grades. She said that if you have a lot of exra activities (basketball, football, soccer, etc) you'll have a much easier time getting into a college than someone who doesn't. And i thought that was the stupidest thing I ever heard, but I'm not sure if it's true or not, seeing as how a bunch of junoirs and senoirs are doing a bunch of stupid exra activities now. Just wanted to say that, if anyone can clarify this for me lemme know

[helenwk]

Apr 9, 2010 17:07:04 GMT -5 jaw said:

My bio told me that Colleges look for "Well-rounded" students. What this means is that they look at your community hours, exra activities etc. instead of looking at your grades. She said that if you have a lot of exra activities (basketball, football, soccer, etc) you'll have a much easier time getting into a college than someone who doesn't. And i thought that was the stupidest thing I ever heard, but I'm not sure if it's true or not, seeing as how a bunch of junoirs and senoirs are doing a bunch of stupid exra activities now. Just wanted to say that, if anyone can clarify this for me lemme know

The way my counselors explained it to me when I was enrolling is that they look at your grades first, and then extra-curricular activities are what put you over the edge. For instance, say you're applying to a really competitive school like Harvard, almost everyone is going to have a high GPA, so what gets you in over the other kids are the little extra things you do.

[Rob]

Apr 9, 2010 17:07:04 GMT -5 jaw said:

My bio told me that Colleges look for "Well-rounded" students. What this means is that they look at your community hours, exra activities etc. instead of looking at your grades. She said that if you have a lot of exra activities (basketball, football, soccer, etc) you'll have a much easier time getting into a college than someone who doesn't. And i thought that was the stupidest thing I ever heard, but I'm not sure if it's true or not, seeing as how a bunch of junoirs and senoirs are doing a bunch of stupid exra activities now. Just wanted to say that, if anyone can clarify this for me lemme know

If your grades are average, extra-curriculars and community activities matter immensely. That is true and that comes right from the mouths of several admissions people I've spoken to over the years.

If you have horrible grades or amazing grades, the outside stuff matters less.

[shinigami345]

I don't know if anyone has this at their school, but mine has a RIA score or something like that to get into the regent colleges and it takes 20x your gpa like 5x your class rank 2x your ACT and something else but what really infuriates me is that I'm the smartest in my class hands down (I'm not bragging or anything it's stating known facts that in general knowladge I can beat anyone in my class) but I'm ranked 11/26 with a gpa of 3.6 and I know for a fact that 5 girls in my class "compare" answers which is a euthanism for cheating in my book so if I don't get into harvard or something just because I don't have extra curriculars or a good class rank I'll raise hellfire on capital hill with some strongly worded letters to my senator.

[Rob]

Apr 9, 2010 18:43:47 GMT -5 shinigami345 said:

I don't know if anyone has this at their school, but mine has a RIA score or something like that to get into the regent colleges and it takes 20x your gpa like 5x your class rank 2x your ACT and something else but what really infuriates me is that I'm the smartest in my class hands down (I'm not bragging or anything it's stating known facts that in general knowladge I can beat anyone in my class) but I'm ranked 11/26 with a gpa of 3.6 and I know for a fact that 5 girls in my class "compare" answers which is a euthanism for cheating in my book so if I don't get into harvard or something just because I don't have extra curriculars or a good class rank I'll raise hellfire on capital hill with some strongly worded letters to my senator.

Yeah, ranks... most of the top people in my high school (woo, 5 years ago now, wow) were people taking art classes and people "sharing" things, just as you said. While that may help them get in somewhere, it only hurts them for excelling at that place. Keep that in your back pocket.

If you're truly the "smartest" you'll be able to make your application amazing. I believe in you.

[shinigami345]

I plan on learning like 7 other languages then twiddling my thumb at them for only learning Spanish with me. And I figured this all out if they go to college and major in different things they will burn out because 5 people cannot do 5 different majors with eachother unless they have no life(which they kinda do currently). And I'm getting a B in my art class (some stupid project the teacher is doing where you gotta write about your thoughts and I can't write). And my english is killing me too I have a B- in that class because the teacher hates my papers after I perfectly cite everything and all taht she drops a C on me. Where I have they beat is math even though 4/5 of them are in my math class but they probably can't do calculus like I already can also on my PLAN test I got a perfect score on my algebra and missed 2% on my geometry(proably that one stupid problem about the boat and the river).

[kevinguy247]

Apr 9, 2010 18:47:04 GMT -5 Rob said:

Apr 9, 2010 18:43:47 GMT -5 shinigami345 said:

I don't know if anyone has this at their school, but mine has a RIA score or something like that to get into the regent colleges and it takes 20x your gpa like 5x your class rank 2x your ACT and something else but what really infuriates me is that I'm the smartest in my class hands down (I'm not bragging or anything it's stating known facts that in general knowladge I can beat anyone in my class) but I'm ranked 11/26 with a gpa of 3.6 and I know for a fact that 5 girls in my class "compare" answers which is a euthanism for cheating in my book so if I don't get into harvard or something just because I don't have extra curriculars or a good class rank I'll raise hellfire on capital hill with some strongly worded letters to my senator.

Yeah, ranks... most of the top people in my high school (woo, 5 years ago now, wow) were people taking art classes and people "sharing" things, just as you said. While that may help them get in somewhere, it only hurts them for excelling at that place. Keep that in your back pocket.

If you're truly the "smartest" you'll be able to make your application amazing. I believe in you.

Half of the kids in the top ten in my grade always do their homework together. I know because they're all my best friends, I'm just not one of them.

[newschooled]

Apr 8, 2010 15:53:07 GMT -5 Tiffany said:

People let schools get away with this because, in the simplest terms, they don't think they can do anything about it. They see the education system as something massive that overpowers everyone and they can't change a single thing- even if that thing hurts people (or even has the potential to).

This is one of those situations where I can honestly say - Speak for yourself.

I vividly remember when I was a kid and I went through a crap school - My parents single handedly brought the school board to their knees through a year long campaign involving the media, parental interest groups, the county, and legal action. The result was a situational staff turnover of over 50% in that school and complete restructuring of the local school board over the following school year as a direct result, including both the principle and vice principle.

...All from 2 parents to begin with.