School and the Students

[Sera13]

RE: Re: RE: School and the Students

I think Grades Are bad references to your intellegence, They do in a small part calculate intellegence but for the over all scheme of things, It simply is a measurement of your ablilty and desire to work and in some cases study.

I am a ceritifed Genius with a rather impressive IQ, I am in all honors classes as well as the gifted program and its been this way since Elementry School. My very best friend is also A certified Genuis, In gifted, and is by far one of the two smartest people i ever met. The other of these two is my friend megan. She is truely Brilliant. She also, Is a genius and in the gifted program. The three of us are all fortunate enough to be in atleast one class together, and me and one of them (the boy) is in another together.

lets set the threee of us at equal intellegences (we are the only 3 kids in the gifted program, after all)

The boy is that type of kid who knows everything about everything, Except his does NONE of his work in any classes nor does the homework required.

I Never do home work and will just do enough class work to get by which still require little to no effort. I am, as well as the boy is, Exteremly unorganised and often not prepared. I never pay an attention in my class either. My average day is sleeping, drawing, and writting what ever i feel like.

Megan, The girl Goes home everynight does pages upon pages of home work, comes to class everyday completely prepared and organized does every bit of class work and still knows no more than me or chris.

We all take Tests in our class

We get them back with Equally High scores, Better than the rest of the class.

Semester Ends. The boy has failed, I have about an average class grade after doing alot of lass minute "pass me" work, And Megan breezes by with the highest grade in the class..


I do believe that our tests however are a much more accurate Way to determine ones current knowledge upon a subject, thats what they are designed to do.
I math, Chris being the genuis boy, Still finds a way to stuggle becuase he is still in honors classes in math and Doesnt graps math as well as his english and history, therefor he needs to pay a bit of attention but instead talks away. Test day comes, he cant answer a single question and he does fail this class.

Me on the other had, Math is my strong point. I dont believe i payed attention in math a single day. I never once turned in a page of homework(which she took up and graded everynight) and on test day, I would Make the highest grade in the class if not in all her classes, everytime. My teacher point blank told me she wouldnt let me fail becuase i was the most brilliant student she had. When Report Cards came around i had made an 89% in there, mind you, The highest grade in all her classes was a 91%. i made this grade without any extra credit, Teachers bumping up my grades, And i did it without any effort.

See what some people could do if they applied themselves?!?

[YungYung]

Sera, are you in an advanced english class aswell? =\

Anyway, I personally think that tests mean next to nothing. People who do their work and score higher on tests naturally get higher averages. Those who don't hand anything in, and don't study prior to a test naturally get lower averages. With that said, scholastic marks are just a way of sticking a number to how hard you've worked during the year. If your number is high, congratulations. You've succeeded in making a group of random teachers think that you are 'gifted' and/or 'intelligent'.

The words gifted and intelligent aren't necessarily true, though. Some of the smartest people I've ever met lack a ridiculous amount of social smarts. It doesn't matter if you know all the elements in the periodic table. If you can't properly communicate with people, you lack manners, you don't groom yourself, etc.. you won't get anywhere in life. People look for THESE things when you apply(sp?) for a job. Example: Two people show up for a job as a realtor. One had a 95 average, the other had a 72. If the person with the 72 average had better skills in communicating, was more open minded/friendly, he would be the most likely to get the job. The number that some retarded school system gave him means nothing.

EDIT:

oh I can't remember who it was, but somebody commented on International Baccalaureate. My school offers this program but I won't be taking it next year since I'm a French Immersion student. IB is not harder/easier than a regular class. The only difference is that you are going at a MUCH faster pace. For a regular grade 10 student taking all of their math classes, they should be taking a math10 in semester I, and a math20 in semester II. A grade 10 IB student would be taking math10,math20, and mathA30 during those two semesters. Not only that, but there is also an adjustment system. There's a huge long formula for how it works but I don't have it. The example I was once given was that if you got 75% in an IB level class, it'd be adjusted to 82%.

[Layla-Day]

Re: School and the Students

Looking at someone's GPA usually tells how smart they are and how hard they work.

Not really, because I was always put in advanced classes, and always got 2.5's not because I didnt know How to do it, but because I was a lazy bastard and didnt WANT to do it. just wanted to point that out.

[Sera13]

Sera, are you in an advanced english class aswell? =\

Anyway, I personally think that tests mean next to nothing. People who do their work and score higher on tests naturally get higher averages. Those who don't hand anything in, and don't study prior to a test naturally get lower averages. With that said, scholastic marks are just a way of sticking a number to how hard you've worked during the year. If your number is high, congratulations. You've succeeded in making a group of random teachers think that you are 'gifted' and/or 'intelligent'.

Yes i am in all Advanced classes, and yes, i know i cant spell. I am also in the gifted program as i already stated.

I also highly disagree with your theory on tests becuase i made the highest grades on tests out of the class without fail with no studing homework or even paying the slightest bit of attention, yes i realised i am rather lucky But test do indeed Measure you current Knowledge of a subject to that point (which is what i said in the first place) Regaurdless of if your studied or didnt. It simply shows how well you know the material you could still fail a test even after studing for hours, and some people like me dont have to even think about the subject. It just dependse on hwo you take it all in. I studied for hours in Biology, The only class i struggled in, and still failed 85% of all my tests in that class.


My sophmore year, which is the one more recently completed i took the following courses, I would have taken better ones but was not allowed due to the schools lack of offering such classes becuase it was brandnew (as was my middle school so the same senerio happen there)

I took:

Honors PRE-CALC
Honors Spanish 3
Media Concepts (to take up empty space)
AP English 3
Honors Biology
Computer Programming
ITI-Information Tech Infostructure

yay for me.. It sucked.. i think im going to go fo the easy a's this year, being as its my last year of high school (thats right im graduating a a junior) and stick with mostly standard classes.

[Reach]

I think some people are doomed to get bad grades before they even walk into the building. If you arn't prepared to concentrate, work, dedicate yourself and get a good nights sleep, you just won't do well. How many people can't concentrate, or pay attention in class because they were up till 4 am the night before?

Exams are the real performance testers. Getting a good nights sleep, and keeping your mind calm before and during the exam are probably the key factors to scoring well. Tests are more or less the same, it doesn't matter how much you study half the time. If you havn't got your mind in a performance mode, you won't do well. I think, some people struggle with certain subjects though, because their mind has a harder time processing and regurgitating different types of information. Something like biology, is strictly fact work which requires memorization, where as math and physics, is just being able to understand key concepts and apply them. And then, there are always subjects that just do not interest you, so your mind also has a hard time. If something is interesting, you'll most likely remember it. Its hard to rememeber things you arn't paying attention to XD Most of the time your mind will work like a filter.

I know a man that would score 99, or 100% on every single test he would ever write, in every subject. And I'm talking about hard courses here, like grade 12 physics and calculus. He would walk out of every course with a 99, or a 100% grade depending on if he got 99 or 100 on the exam. He would never, ever score under 99 on anything. One day, I decided to ask him how he did it. Was he really that much smarter than the rest of us? He replied to me with something unusual. He said ''I don't score higher than you because I'm smarter, I do because I choose to. I know I will score 100% on the test before it even starts, because I have my mind geared to not finishing the test untill I know I have completed it to 100%.'' After that, I found I could score higher on tests by just calming and concentrating my thoughts more, and always asking myself ''will I be given full value for this?''. You need to be good at doing exactly whats being asked of you. Too many people stray from the true intentions of the question.

And Sera, your grammar is atrocious for someone of such intelligence.

[Sera13]

And Sera, your grammar is atrocious for someone of such intelligence.

I have 3 thigns to say to that:

I am and have also been a terrible speller

I cant type very well despite my speed

I am on muscule relaxers becuase of alot of back/hip problems and they are messing with my head terribly, and most of my post are at late night hours as it is.. so my heads just not all there.. or becuase of the meds. Mostly not there.

[TheAppleEater]

When I was in 8th grade I took the highest level math class possible, and I didn't do much of the homework and i did poorly on tests, and i came out of the class with a C... Then as a freshman I went into geometry, not honors. I was one of the few freshman in the class. However, I still did almost no homework and I didn't give much effort on the tests, but I somehow always got the highest grade on the test and I got the fifth highest grade in the class. Ironicly, the girl that sat directly behind me did every single assignment to the best of her abbility, and studied and tried her best on every test. She would cry in class if she didnt understand something, where I would simply think to myself, "I'll eventually learn it." This girl got the sixth highest grade in the class.

I also notice that I learn the most from the classes where the teacher is laid back and doesn't pay much attention to the students grades.

Logan

[Technique]

RE: Re: RE: School and the Students

I am in no honors or AP classes this year, even though I CAN be in honors english, and possibly honors world history...its just that I dont want to, because I would rather have easier classes....but if the class is too easy I might ask to be in something higher so that it counts more.

And most kids that are in all honors, do better in them because their simply SMARTER

[JurseyRider734]

RE: Re: RE: School and the Students

Intelligence = Ability to take imformation from books, memorize it, then mark it down on a piece of paper.


Natural brightness isn't found in many.

[suicidalmuskrat]

RE: Re: RE: School and the Students

That was a joke, right jursey? Intelligence is not the ability to read, memorize, and recite. It's the ability to read, understand, and apply.

[senate7377]

RE: Re: RE: School and the Students

It's been my understanding that Ap was freshman college level classes. I took all AP my senior year, half of AP in my junior. Ap classes aren't so much as harder, but more indepth, which is why they carry more weight. I remember in my AP English class(if you can believe I was in AP English and was my second strongest subject next to Physics), that we read Tess of D'Ubervilles. Now, I read that book in 9th grade English as well. It seemed odd to me as to why, if I was in an AP class, we'd be reading a book I read in 9th grade. Later on in the year it struck me as to why:

My AP class read the whoel beeok in two weeks, and considered it slow. We, every other day had 10 page analytical essays dissecting various minute aspects of the book, the author, writing style, allusion, and so on. My 9th grade class simply read that book to get vocabulary and because it was considered "good" reading. I can't say I really loved the essays and at the time considered it busy work. Nobody could justify to me as to how in the books "A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man" and "Dubliners" (two books by James Joyce some years apart), there was an affrimative way to prove the direct correlation between the color blue and skulls, per our assignment. There was a SINGLE reference in both books, that we were to make a 10 page explanation out of. I got a B for simply writing: There is no feasble connection between the two subjects in either book. It's silly to think that an author would sit down and wrote a book, stopping in the middle of the second to think "I had blue and skulls a couple of books back. I must make a connection to these again". Therefore it is saef to assume that on a minimal level, James Joyce may have have an affinity for both. This would not explain why in the book written between the two, there was no such reference to either. So, my final thought would be that perhaps the area that Mr. Joyce did most of his writing had the color blue in it and perhaps something that reminded him of skulls. It has been said that authors draw from their surroundings. Unfortuantely that is my only supporting statement." (or thats basically what I wrote anyway). I didnt follow the guidelines set forth, but I put thought into it. I wasn't wrong but I wasn't right, there was no right answer, the teacher just wanted to see us think on our own. What was funny, is pole stuggled, using huge words and wordy sentances, made a full attempt at doing this. Most of them got C and below becuase their explanation lost their target audience by doing so. It was also a way for the teacher to prove that vernacular and vocabulary use on a higher level isn't always effective communication even if proper.

I guess my point is, that AP classes differ in the rate at which material is coverd and expected to be retained, AND that it is designed to develop a level of critical thinking not demanded in classesat a lower level. They are designed to challenge the students who would otherwise be bored and not pay attention. My AP classes weren't all nerds, we had a fair amount of partiers and high society cats. We were rowdy and had a crazy time...like standing on desks, putting feet on desks, and getting up and just leaving class when we were done. Again, that was a different time - school shootings and such weren't something people ever heard of.

Thats my only guess. I've never heard of IB and CP was I guess the AP equiv 10 years ago in MD, when I was in HS. I don't fault the post originator for wondering...but maybe he over analysed the question. Sometimes, the hard questions have obvious answers.