Low Expectations

I had a shocking experience this week in both Mrs. Porter’s and Mr. Sowder’s classes. The school encourages teachers to inform the students of their grades prior to sending the report cards homes. In Mrs. Porter’s class on Tuesday she gave all of her students a list of all of their grades with the final grade at the bottom. Although I’ve been in the class every week and I see the level that the students perform at, it was still shocking to see how many of the students had a C- or below. What surprised me more was to see how many students celebrated having anything above an F. During my first meeting with Mr. Sowder and Mrs. Porter, they both told me that one big issue was that students just wanted to pass or to receive their credit, that this was the mentality at the middle school and that it carried over to the high school. Even with this warning, I was still amazed. The only students who seemed dissatisfied with their grades were some of the students who were failing.

I am not sure what factors motivate students to want to do well, but I am even more clueless as to what factors allow students to be content with a C. In my experience as an undergraduate student in engineering, I noticed a similar phenomenon. Highly motivated students who did not do well in their first few terms, mentally adjusted their personal expectations. Whereas in their freshmen year, they expected to receive A’s, by their junior year they expected to receive C’s. This was a result of a very demanding curriculum and perhaps inadequate preparation.

I wonder at what point along the K-12 path do students become simply interested in passing a class. Seeing this mentality before my eyes forced me into action. That evening I e-mailed Ms. Porter to ask if I could speak to her class on the following day about the importance of grades and test scores. I wanted to remind them that grades do matter and that equally as important is to learn the material because it will appear again on standardized tests that influence college admissions. I went to the ACT website and took about seven questions that were relevant to the material that Mrs. Porter had been teaching.

During my next visit, I reminded the class of what they told me on my first day. Most said that they were interested in going to college after high school. Thus, I asked them what the top two criteria that colleges use to admit students were. After a bit of guessing, we narrowed it down to GPA and ACT/SAT scores. I urged the class not to settle for poor grades when they could achieve better. At the end of the discussion, I passed out the seven question practice ACT and told them that there would be a prize for the student who got the highest score.

This was my third time “presenting” in front of the class and by far, it went the best. Since I have been around the class for so long, they all know me and are much more interested in listening to what I have to say than they were when I was a stranger. I saw that some of the students really understood what I was saying; however, I think the students need constant reminders that they are on a path to go to college and become professionals and that everything they are doing is in preparation for that.

Two days later, I observed the same attitudes in Mr. Sowder’s class when he distributed the grades. Primarily, the only students who were very angry were students who were failing.