Why Students Don’t Try By:MM
If I don’t try my best, I’m going to fail. The fear of failing is the ideal mindset that students should have in order to be successful. However, what are students actually thinking?
At some point before the beginning of the school year my friends and I get together to talk about classes. Someone typically asks the question, “Is that teacher easy?” It occurred to me that this question is asked because students want to receive good grades while doing the least work possible. In school we don’t have many kids that fail. Therefore, kids aren’t motivated to put in effort to keep their grades from slipping. If implementing the fear of failing made kids work for their grades, then teachers need to fail poor performing students to motivate the rest of the class.
Mary Sherry, a teacher of adult literature and a mother wrote, “My son finished Senior English with an A after almost failing.“This came from her story of her son in high school as a senior. He almost failed his English class because he was constantly slacking off. But, his senior English teacher talked to Mary about wanting to fail him if he didn’t start to work for his grades. The story that Mary shared gives an example of how implementing the fear of failing can actually improve students’ ability to learn and score well.
An article quoted Gavin Dykes, a well known education and technology advisor, ”Frequently educators think failure is not allowed” (Dobo). Others may say that failure is not an option, but I argue that motivating students to work, by failing the slackers, would bring up the classes’ GPA. Furthermore this would improve learning for the majority students.The number of slackers would lessen because students would be scared to fail.
In my school, students say, “I don’t feel like trying today. “Why do students think they don’t have to put forth effort? Students are likely not afraid of getting bad grades because they don’t know many people who have gotten F’s. If teachers failed students who didn’t earn their grades, then others would be afraid of failing and help them reach their full potential.
Picture credits: Hruzek, Robert. Bad Grade. Digital image. Flickr, 15 Dec. 2011. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.
My Opinion:
I can see where you are coming from here. What seems like a bad thing is actually a hidden motivation for students. It is true that instead of students wanting to succeed, they just want to slack off, but not get so bad grades, yet that is not how the ideal system is supposed to work.
Feedback:
In the introduction, when you say “If I don’t try my best, I’m going to fail,” you should add quotations or some other marking that defines the sentence as a thought, instead of something you are saying yourself. For citations/quotes, (like in the third or fourth paragraph,) you might want to do some preparation before the citation, so the reference can be used as effective as possible. Never the less though, you did a great job communicating your idea across and using citations to support and strengthen the essay.
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Great Job! I agree! By the way, I am a student from another school and we had a homework assignment to comment on a written writing piece from another blog and I found this! The picture drew me into it. Awesome job!!
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Excellent! My homework assignment was to read someone else’s blog from another school and yours seemed the most interesting! I loved how you included quotes in your blog entry. Really great job!
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What an interesting approach to this issue! I would have never thought about this topic in this specific way. Fears of punishment and failing in general could motivate students to work harder. Your thoughts were precise and detailed. By adding quotes and citations it made your view more convincing. Overall, Great Job!
Suggestions:
Your sentence starters were varied, but I suggest not to use a “th” starter, like “the”. It is not as appealing as a more interesting sentence starter.
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This is an interesting point of view. I agree students would do better and learn more if they were threatened with failure. The citations were very effective and the picture drew in readers well. Next time I’d introduce your topic in a different way because the question at the end of your lead didn’t relate to your topic very much. Besides that it was great, and very interesting!
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I agree that if students are afraid of failing they would try harder to succeed. Great job sharing your point of view about this problem. Nice job!
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I like how you wrote about something current and that students would want to read about. Great Job!!
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This is very interesting point of view that I never thought about before. I always thought the fear of failing would make students preform worse but it actually makes them preform better.
-Kicky L., Patton Middle School, 8th grade
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I love this idea, it really gets the gears in my mind moving. The piece is also well written and Interesting! Great job
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As I am a student this really interested me and it really got me thinking that the fear of failing a class makes me so much better and keeps me more motivated.
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Patton Middle School 8th Grade
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I agree that to motivate students, there must be consequences. Most of my teachers will deliberately try to avoid giving F’s, such as allowing people to make up work later for partial credit. Some students may complain about how “hard” or “bad” a teacher is because of homework policies, but overcoming difficulty is important for growth. I know that for me, when I finish an essay for a class that was particularly rough, I am more proud of myself for doing difficult work than mad at the teacher for assigning it. What’s the point of school if not to learn? You can never grow as a student if you stay within your comfort zone, and fear of F’s can help motivate students to do their best, even when they are trying something new.
– Sebastian G., Patton 8th Grade
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Your approach is very interesting and unique. I really enjoyed your take on this topic! I think adding more facts with logos would strengthen your writing. The use of pathos and the quotes were used very well to convey the readers. However it was confusing when you went from talking about the mom to an article from another guy. Are they the same article? Deciphering the two would make the piece flow more smoothly. You had real life examples as your evidence which was effective, but adding other types of evidence such as statistics would enhance your writing. Overall I really enjoyed your piece and with a few tweaks it would be amazing, good job!
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I like your introduction. You nailed it with a use of first person and using a words that an average student might say. You were also able to connect to your audience really well with emotion. Your also doing a really good job with using real world situations.
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try not to use first person and opinions because it takes away your credibility
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Your conclusion was very strong and so was your introduction. The only thing I would suggest would be to use less personal “I” statements. Also, another way to strengthen your argument would be with more statistics and facts. The quote you included strengthen your argument and more of those would make your essay even better. In conclusion, you were very passionate about your topic, and that allowed your essay to be very relatable. Good job overall!
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I liked the point you made about how we, as students, asked other students if the teacher is hard. I have asked this question many times and thought that the parallel you made was very incisive and accurate. Very well written.
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