The facade of a high school education is never more apparent than during registration season.
“Do I need four years of a language to get into privates?” I heard some ask while nervously looking over their pink registration forms. I know that many German students plan on leaving the program after their UC-required three years of indentured language servitude is up.
We have one of the best German teachers in the state, but students who’ve spent three years of their high school career building a bedrock of vocabulary and grammar knowledge plan to throw that away now that they’ve fulfilled course requirements. College credits are done? Life is done.
A majority are of the opinion that high school is just a conveyor belt into college into a high-paying STEM job. This rat-a-tat-tat of moving up the ladder, while probably realistic, focuses only on a narrow band of application and salary successes, missing out on rewarding personal growth.
For those dead-set on grades to the detriment of receiving actual education, I have something to tell you. Your life will not be rewarding if you can’t enjoy Walt Whitman’s poetry without the urge to use Sparknotes. Your character will not improve if the way you approach challenge is calling in sick in order to cram for a better grade. You will not be an interesting person if your reading skills end at combing online passages for quiz answers.
Academically, grades are king, for better or worse. It’s a reality we all live with. But there’s a happy medium between prioritizing grades and attempting learning.
Some of these are in students’ court: critically analyzing a passage in whole to find the multiple choice answer, for example, or attempting their best (not BS’ed) work on language writing homework to push their fluency. One of the best academic feelings you can get, in my opinion, is completing a whole math assignment, review problems and all.
Teachers can facilitate these habits by assigning legitimately useful work that aims to teach instead of piecemeal filler that pushes students to copy or fake real work.
Because many students are stuck doing soul-numbing, nonsense assignments in most of their classes, they probably feel that’s all school can be. I urge these students to try something new. Sign up for an ROP or elective course that you’re unsure of and maybe you’ll find a subject that inspires you to pursue a topic as a career.
Grades determine your options, but those options only matter if you’re genuinely interested in pursuing them.