I fear for their future.
By McCreeper
@McCreeper (777)
United States
February 1, 2013 12:29am CST
These students in my class are.. not the brightest light in the classroom. It's my last year in this well-known prodigious high school, and irony ensues as in this "senior-only" course called "Writing for College", and there was a question prior to reading an article where you describe your favorite game.
There was a group next to us, and this guy was whispering how to spell "seek" from hide-and-seek. Turns out he wasn't exactly whispering,as the class was silent and you could hear him from the other side of the class room. 
In another senior-only course, there was this student in our class who seems to know his English when the teacher asked him what "structure" meant. He wasn't asking for the structure of a sentence, a structure of a story, no; He was asking for a definition of it, and the student didn't understand it.
Now I've been told that I should be more sociologically mindful as well as imaginative of others, but this is something that I can't empathize too well. These are people born with a spoon in their mouth in a rich neighborhood, yet they don't understand how to spell a four-lettered word or understand a word that has been used from intermediate school to now, and they may very well be graduating high school. Not to mention of course, everyone does make a mistake once in a while, but every time they were called on, they weren't able to pick themselves back up. 
Have you faced these groups of people when you were in High school, or even in College?
In another senior-only course, there was this student in our class who seems to know his English when the teacher asked him what "structure" meant. He wasn't asking for the structure of a sentence, a structure of a story, no; He was asking for a definition of it, and the student didn't understand it.
Now I've been told that I should be more sociologically mindful as well as imaginative of others, but this is something that I can't empathize too well. These are people born with a spoon in their mouth in a rich neighborhood, yet they don't understand how to spell a four-lettered word or understand a word that has been used from intermediate school to now, and they may very well be graduating high school. Not to mention of course, everyone does make a mistake once in a while, but every time they were called on, they weren't able to pick themselves back up.
Have you faced these groups of people when you were in High school, or even in College?1 person likes this
7 responses
@echoforever (5180)
• United States
1 Feb 13
I wonder about the generations today how they do in their school and will do in the future. I have never asked a teacher or heard what they th ink about their students. The amount of information for learning is quadruple for us but we don't use those resources to learn. The internet is only sued for our entertainment so the information goes unheeded. Then the students suffer because they're not learning enough.
@McCreeper (777)
• United States
2 Feb 13
Well, here's a bit of an insight for being a high school graduate of 2013.. People are using technology a lot more often now, but it's often not to learn. I see this happening around the library where people would borrow an iPad from the librarians and use it to share funny YouTube videos. Not that I don't, but it's a very simple way to procrastinate.
Education has not yet improved to the extent where students are allowed to take their course online, but it is getting there; some of the top colleges have started producing videos that allow you to simulate taking a class in (let's say..) Harvard or MIT.
As for learning.. well there have been some rather unique outliers when it came to the mathematical sense, as there were seventh graders already coming to our school to attend Calculus. Interesting, yet horrifying in a way.
@jenny1015 (13359)
• Philippines
1 Feb 13
Definitely! And I feel sorry for them. They could have millions or maybe billions of money but there is more to it than money, right? Not that I am stooping down on them but, I feel that they should be more enthusiastic to learn since they have the means to study at very good universities.
@McCreeper (777)
• United States
2 Feb 13
So much wasted potential.. Every day they come with (what I believe to be) Designer's clothes, tailored to their style, and they pulled up their Arsenal of iphones and iTouches, yet they reduced their dialect to an "English Internet Speak", where words like this.. 3nd up lyk dis.
I guess if that's how they want to squander their money, that's their own discretion, not mine. 
@scarlet_woman (23463)
• United States
2 Feb 13
i see it more now than i did when i was going to school.
i'm surprised some of the younger people can even spell cat.
we had a case local where a guy got as far as college totally illiterate-his professor caught it.
although,he must have been smart to a great degree otherwise,he admitted he was using visual cues to bypass his lack of comprehension.
@jalucia (1431)
• United States
1 Feb 13
I have come across lots of individuals who have graduated college and I can't understand how. It baffles me how a college education just isn't apparent when you're dealing with a person. The bar in this country, even worldwide, has definitely been lowered. It's not so much about excelling as it is about just getting through any way that you can.
@McCreeper (777)
• United States
2 Feb 13
College as far as I have heard, has not really been about factual information that people need to know, but rather more of the problem-solving aspect, though I don't have enough experience knowing what it really is. 
@asliah (11137)
• Philippines
21 Mar 13
yes,i have encountered this kind of people before that don't even know how to spell ordinary words that we usually use for everyday,but people will change maybe their are not ready to learn,and the teacher should think good motivation for their student who been like this.
@tiffnkeat (1673)
• Singapore
1 Feb 13
Well, you could have shouted that "Seek" is spelt as "SICK"!
Maybe with the silver spoon in their mouth, they need not learn or know too much except how to spend the family's fortune?
Future? I think theirs is still better than many of ours, so don't fear for them. Fear for yourself. If you are not fearful for yourself, fear for the rest of us.
Take care!
@McCreeper (777)
• United States
2 Feb 13
Heh, I guess I should have, but I know I would have been teased for misspelling too. 
Perhaps you're right about how he spends his money. He may very well pull off a million dollars from stock exchange, but I feel the chances are slim for him; just today he was drawing an explicit image while our teacher was checking for attendance.
Our teacher let him off, but I knew for a fact that our teacher didn't really like him that much. 
Perhaps you're right about how he spends his money. He may very well pull off a million dollars from stock exchange, but I feel the chances are slim for him; just today he was drawing an explicit image while our teacher was checking for attendance.
Our teacher let him off, but I knew for a fact that our teacher didn't really like him that much. 
@ArielAhhhh (126)
• China
2 Feb 13
After reading your words, it did remind me of my first student who learned chinese as a second language, that guy is from middle Asia, a friend of my friend's husband. Before teaching him, i was told that he has already learnt Chinese for one year before he came to China, and plus more than half a year learning in China taught by a Chinese teacher from a local primary school. To be frank, before i met him , I have thought how good his chinese was, so i prepared so much materials and teaching stuff for him. I know it is not difficult to check out the level of one student no matter how much time he has taken to learn Chinese. Well, it was in fact so surprise for me that the guy has learnt it so badly, believe me, so bad for a student learning Chinese over a year and a half. And since that time, i was intrigued to figure out the reason why this would happen for him and was it because of his learning ability or the teacher's skills or something else? Well, finally i found that all of that came from his attitude towards learning, not just Chinese learning. He thought he learnt so good and has already knew everything and listened to no words from others, including the teacher, his elder brother-a business man in China who can speak Chinese very fluently. Although before he left china, both he and his brother appreciated me so much saying something about my teaching, i did know, if he continued living that way,without changing his attitude to his study, work and even his life, it would come no good.
