No

by Narnie

Created on: February 28, 2010

I do not believe children must bear full responsibility for failing their grades in school. As with all things, especially the student/teacher relationship, it is an equal partnership of a shared responsibility.

Children by nature are avid learners ready to soak everything up! How can they fail their grades? Is it appropriate to assume they have failed their grades, or have they been failed in their grades? Failing grades is not the end but the beginning of the learning adventure! The first question asked by parents and teachers alike when grades are failed, is “why”? Let’s ask the question; “why not”? Perhaps the real and more appropriate question that may need ot be raised is; “has the student failed their personal development year grade or the academic grade expected of them”? I believe this is the question and answer that would sum up easily a child’s true potential. Is there at all such a thing as “failing” anything? To be categorized as children are as “failing” or “passing”, I believe is really no more than an illusionary convenience of a set of standards developed to place all children in one basket. In doing so, risks many great skills of the child being totally ignored or shelved. Such then is a great loss to not only the child, but the parents and the world at large.

It is proven history that most of the most profound geniuses of the day have been least educated, “failing” their grades. However, many of those are responsible for the greatest inventions and achievements of our time through history. Bill Gates is one of them! Once academics is seen as “achieving” the very essence of human creativity responsible for some of the greatest inventions to come will be lost forever. I believe to measure any student’s grades as “failing” the standards is to be blinded to what has made our world what it is today.

In the classroom, I believe a teacher must assume some responsibility at least in part for any failing on the student’s part to meet the grade standard set. There are many aspects involved with regard to the teacher/student partnership and relationship. Some of these range from layout, format, presentation, interest and of course, cultural elements at all levels that need to be considered. For example; if a student is not learning, there would have to be a reason why. Children who are not learning are out of character with the nature of the chemical composition of childhood in that learning is as natural as breathing. There are many factors that can interfere with a student’s natural learning pattern. I believe in almost every instance there will be an adult behind the obstruction. Wether that adult is their teacher, care-giver or parent/guardian. Children by nature enjoy the learning experience, it is when administered appropriately, embraced as a form of child’s-play. In my many years of experience with children and raising a family of 5, two being completely home-schooled, I have found children love to learn! When they don’t, something is clearly wrong. It is the responsibility of the adults in their environment I believe to unfold, address and rectify any issue present that prevents the child’s ability to learn and subsequently pass grades in school as easily as they should.

Sadly, on a final note, I have found many children are subject to stressful home situations that clearly put them at a serious disadvantage. In these instances, not much can be done, however, when one may look more carefully at that child, heightened creativity is usually present as a healthy substitute. Creativity is I believe a natural in-built autonomous system the human mind renders effectively in times of stress. It is mostly in these cases we will see intuitive creativity exchanged for academic success. Yet, the former is the most critically important of the two in seeing a child produce constructive productive results as opposed to destructive.

In Conclusion: Whilst I acknowledge we need academic results for student placement in year grades, we should not see these results as a “failing”. I have seen many students strive only to be told; “it isn’t enough”. In one brief painful statement a life-time of the learning experience is lost in an instant as there is little or no acknowledgement of the achievements the student has made in other areas. Education comes in many and varied forms, especially in the area of intuitive creative learning experiences that go largely ignored. The next step of course, being resentment on the part of the student to simply lose interest. Hence the first step to grade failing for many years. Who is responsible for killing the student’s incentive to learn when what they do achieve is overlooked and seen as insignificant for the most part?

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