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Why do some students succeed and others fail
to achieve
desired class grades ?
by Richard Millsap
Why do some students
succeed and others fail? How well prepared are you for tomorrow's
workforce?
Some humans have very difficult unsatisfying and unhappy lives while others do
not.
One of the determining factors is quality of education because of all the
advantages it gives.
The reason you are in college is to get the best
education possible because when you graduate, if you do, you will be standing in
a job line asking to be hired in the occupation of your dreams.
There will be many others standing in that line asking for the same job.
Who should be hired? Isn't it most logical that the
employer will hire the best person?
Will that be you?
Why do hard-to-get-into universities want a record of achievement not only in
honors academics, but also in leadership, sports, and community services?
It is because those high achieving students are the cream of the crop able to successfully juggle
many tasks at once. Military academies fight for these students because the
battlefield is the most chaotic environment on earth and is essential that these
future leaders be able to juggle many critical tasks at once.
Would it really surprise you that all
employers want to hire the cream of the crop for the same reason - because they
can successfully juggle many critical tasks at once? Those students are
better achievers. Some students cannot even handle one task successfully, much
less multiple tasks successfully. Sometimes this is because a student is
lacking motivation, is lazy, unprepared, undisciplined, has a poor attitude, and
perhaps is not very intelligent. Whatever the reason for lack of success,
a student must perform self analyses to identify and correct problems and seek
help where needed.
A philosopher once said: "There are 3 kinds of people
in the world: those who make things happen, those who wish things would happen,
and all the rest wandering in a daze wondering what happened." Those high
achiever types of students find a way to make good things happen! In order to achieve in
many areas, one must focus due to limited time in the day. Excuses that
prevent success and achievement in those areas are useless and accomplish
nothing. No one likes excuses. They want results. You must recognize
any diversions and distractions to achievement as the enemies to achieving your
goals. If that means no more television, movies, dates, video games, partying
with friends, or job until you get your education act together, then so be it.
You must focus to prevent those distractions from causing you to fail. You might
be surprised to know that there will be many in your life, known & unknown, who
want you to fail. Will you let them win? Will you let others defeat you?
There are some lessons that apply to all subjects in college.
Poor performance, on exams and other assignments, is
often caused by poor attitude and it is your
enemy. W
This
required course is one of many in the academic gauntlet we ask you to run
through. So whether you are interested
in government or not, or any other course, it doesn’t make any difference, as you must perform well. Whether you know it or not, your quest here is an
important epic battle, against yourself and other students.
Your task is to out perform others, in the classroom and out, in order
that the manager selects you for the job of your dreams and a lifetime of
happiness.
In all your classes, your objective is to inhale as
much learning as possible, whether you like your classes or not, and to
eliminate any obstacle that would prevent you from achieving it.
Obstacles include: not setting goals & intermediate objectives to get
there, not coming to class, reading material in class like
newspapers and not paying attention to lecture content, arriving late and
leaving early, laughing and talking and not paying attention to class lectures
and not taking detailed notes and not asking questions to clarify lecture points and distracting others and the teacher, missing exams, not reading the text as many times as
necessary to master and understand the material, and failure to
organize and even memorize lecture & text material. Some
students even brag about how undisciplined and lazy they are by stating that they never
or rarely read & study their text books or class lecture material. What
they are saying is they want to learn the minimum required to get a degree. Well, no wonder these
low achievers have such difficult times getting and keeping jobs on graduation.
Regarding
attendance... if you are absent the equivalent of two weeks worth of classes or
more over the semester, expect that you will not do as well as you could have
done. There will be ramifications if I notice that too many students are
too frequently absent. In such a case I will not curve exams, nor will I
give breaks on close calls on end of semester grades, and I may give pop
quizzes.
You have to come to
class.
Over
40,000 university students have cycled through my classrooms. A few will
say my course is easy and that you do not have to come to class and only have to
study my PowerPoint slides to make a B. If you listen to them, you may end
up being one of the 15 to 20% who make D's & F's. See this photo? Can you believe how these two students were reading newspapers
in class while a person in line to be President of the United States was teaching how Congress works? They missed a rare
opportunity to increase their knowledge and their behavior was rude! While
I lecture I notice some are reading newspapers, paperback books
and other materials during lectures. During the playing of videos I have
noticed from the back of the class students using notebook computers playing
video games and "IMing" friends and working internet sites un-related to class.
I have not yet seen students using computers to word process class notes.
We do not wish to shut down the use of computers during classes, like we have
had to do with cell phones and such, but is worth considering if students will
not use them appropriately. How can you do well on exams if not paying attention in class?
Know that my PowerPoint slides are merely lecture outlines and that I ask
questions not only about what is on the slides but what I say about the slides.
I am often mystified to see students not taking class notes and I wonder how
these students will remember what I said about a point a month later on the
exam. Life is
about choices.
Some choose to make "A's" and some to
make "F's." You might be amused by this story. In 1992, one of my
students from White Settlement, Paul Serio, informed me that
he was a 
Burleson
public school substitute teacher and new to the area from New York City and that his grade
in my class was too low and bad
for his new teaching career. He blamed me and demanded that I improve them. I
refused and suggested that he study harder. His looks at me for the rest of the
semester could kill. Two years later in March 1994 he made national newspaper
headlines
for being extradited back to Florida where he was convicted of capital murder
for the cold blooded "murder for hire" execution of a mother and her 18 month
old baby daughter. He was a contract mob type killer from New York City! Serio's method was to strangle with a telephone cord and
stab with a knife. In this court room photo of the convicted murderer Serio, he
doesn't look so brave and tough when informed he faced the electric chair. The
Burleson ISD substitute teacher was a contract killer! There are several lessons here. One,
you never know who the student is sitting next to you. Even criminals want more
education to improve themselves. Two, if I will not arbitrarily raise the grade
of a threatening contract serial killer, what makes you think I will change your
grade? :-) Study!
One of the
above offenses committed on occasion does not seem like a major problem and
appears survivable. But such bad habits are like a string of thread in that one
strand is easily broken; however, wrapped around your fingers many times it
becomes unbreakable and often we are not quite sure at what point it began to
control us. Performing well and achieving high grades is like an addicting
drug in that once you are rewarded with A's for your hard work - you want more.
Priming the pump once will help you get on and stay on the right path for your
academic career, as you get to a point that anything less than an A is
unacceptable and this motivates you to work as hard as necessary to accomplish
the task.
Lastly,
it just does not make sense to do so poorly that you are forced to re-take the
course. It is not good on your academic record and is a tragic waste of
your time and resources. By avoiding the above pitfalls, you achieve
academic success, and if you stir into the recipe civic mindedness and good old
fashioned ethics you have a winning formula for success in life.
As I sat there, I noticed a number of students
talking among themselves. Their conversations were loud enough to be heard
several rows around them. Many were eating or drinking. The professor, after
trying to ignore their conversations, motioned for them to be more quiet. Her
pleading went unheeded. The
students proceeded to talk among themselves as if they had not even heard her
reprimand. Again the professor tried to quiet them in a respectful manner. And
still the students were deaf to her commands.
Many students have work schedules that force their
leaving. Others may be ill or need a ride to work or home. Some instructors do
not wish to embarrass students or be accused of some kind of harassment at a
time in education when students' demands and needs are being given increasing
importance.
Over the years I have found, mostly through anecdotal
evidence, that student disrespect for college teachers and their fellow students
is not at all unusual. Many
professors are timid about complaining for fear of being blamed for not teaching
well enough or not having the ability to control their classes.
Today the pendulum has gone to the other direction.
All the emphasis is on the college professor, who is pressured not only to teach
but to inspire students to learn. It is a difficult assignment, especially in
the face of widespread student disrespect for the classroom environment.
It is an open secret that many college and university professors do not
wish to teach many introductory classes. Their utopia is to teach perhaps one
small introductory class and an advanced or graduate class and to mostly do
research. This insulates them from the student masses.
Perhaps it is easy to understand why the classroom
breeds such disrespect. Students want to be entertained, inspired and educated
at the same time. But all professors are not really good teachers. And they
should not have to be. Students can learn from even the dreariest lecturer if
they really wish to learn. I can only remember one or two truly great teachers.
But my college friends still learned and were grateful for the experience. Most
college and university teachers truly like their students. Many would like
teaching to be the center of their lives. If students would come to class on
time, not leave early, and refrain from talking and eating in class, they might
get better performance from their teachers.
Allan Saxe is an associate professor of political science and a longtime resident of Arlington. Arlington Star-Telegram November 1, 1999. (c) 1999.