Student Academic Success : Excellence/Poorly?
by Andrew Kwan
February 06, 2007
To me, honestly, I think that the students only do well in school depending on their ability to listen to instructions, determination to advance to the next grade, the potential to keep up with homework and class work, support from their close friends and many other reasons. There are various amounts of successful students and unsuccessful ones. I think it’s important that everyone tries their best in school, so I decided to find out more about this because I believe it was very interesting to find out more about the other students.
To find out more about this topic, I interviewed some students with three questions. One of the questions included why do you think you do good/bad in school? This was to add to my previous reasons of what causes good or bad grades in school. Feng, a 7th grader, said, “I do good in school because I do my homework and class work.” Another 7th grader, Melina, replied, “I do good in school because I do my work completely and sufficiently unlike others.” When there comes good progress, there comes bad progress too, as usual. Another student , a new 7th grader said, “I’m currently doing pretty bad in school because I was out of school for a while mostly because of the cold that I had.”
My second question that I had for them was whether they had good teachers or not. This question is a question that might have something to do with why the students are doing bad, but very unlikely in Edna Brewer, with the “cool” people and all. Feng stated, “I have ‘okay’ teachers because they’re not super intelligent. Also, sometimes, they’re somewhat disorganized.” Melina answered, happily “I think the teachers are great because they’re nice and make it easy for us to learn, and sometimes, fun.” Kendel said, “I like my teachers. They’re great, fun, and hard-working.” I found this to be very true because they’re very right.
My third question was to determine who/what encourages and supports them to do how they’re doing in school. Feng said, “My parents encourage me to do good in school. Well, basically they just yell at me! Also, I want to go to a good college, like U.C. Berkeley!” Melina stated, “My friends are the ones who encourage me to get good grades by helping me when I need help.” Kendel answered, “My parents encourage me because they showed me how successful they are and how I can be like them too.”
My fourth question, whether your parents care about your grades or not, which probably supports my third question, but nonetheless, it’s still a helpful question. Feng thought, “My parents care about my grades because they don’t want me to have a hard time finding a job in the future.” Melina replied, “My parents care about me because they want me to be successful in life and make a lot of money.” Kendel said, “My parents care about my grades because they want me to pass and achieve my dream of becoming successful.”
My final question was an addition to the advisory column. It was to give advice on how the bad students can improve, as if they don’t need it… Feng advised, “I advise the bad students to follow your dreams in reality, so do what’s necessary.” Melina thought, “I strong caution the bad students to listen to teachers and pay attention in class.” Kendel stated, “I just hope for the bad students to do their best and do whatever they want to AFTER school is over.”
In conclusion, it seems that not too many 7th graders are having trouble this year. Also, it seems that they have quite a lot of support from their family and friends. This also adds to the list of many reasons why others do bad in school. I advise all to take the advice that these people came up with.
