What is a 'good' student?
Teachers and parents keep on telling us that you should finish all of your homework, you should attend all the classes, you should, you should, you should… But in the end, should we?
Photo: jeremy.wilburn / Flickr.com (Creative commons).
In any class, there are a few stereotypically ‘good students’, ‘teacher’s pets’, and whatever nicknames they now have. These people do all the homework diligently, attend all of the lessons even when sick, and get straight A’s or 10’s from all the classes.
Of course, I don’t deny that they are good students but how about those students, who now and then miss a few classes, don’t necessarily do every exercise in the homework sheets, and once in a while end up getting a B or 8 from their exams? Are they not good students?
Being a high school senior myself, I believe that by now we should know what we are going to do after high school. No matter if it is university studies or work, we have goals in our mind. With everything we should be working on, we need to prioritize according to our goal.
Instead of spending every evening sweating over my higher level math homework or wasting two hours at school before attending the late-afternoon chemistry lesson, I should focus my time on working towards my goal. These days work experience and social activity are becoming more and more important in both university and job application considerations, so why not spend more time on those?
Just yesterday I came back home a few hours earlier than usual to thoroughly plan the book recycling event I am holding at my school. Even though I missed my chemistry lesson, I had a very productive day and probably achieved even more than if I had waited at school for four hours.
Note that I am NOT hinting for everyone to skip lessons in order to plan some event, but I truly think goal oriented working is much better than pointless work just to get that perfect attendance and flawless report card. Also, I would hope that teachers could understand this.
We are good students, just with a few priorities. Not finishing our homework is not always because we were lazy and made our dog eat it. Not coming to lesson is not always because we don’t care. Not getting full marks is not always because we were partying the night before the exam. It is our education, our future, and we should take care of it ourselves, knowing what to do and what not to do. When there is a clear plan in mind, even a good student might miss a few things.
Wanmeng Zhang participated in the 2010 MY Camp and is currently studying in the IB program at SYK. She loves art and travelling, but is also very active in the Finnish badminton field. During MYC 2010 she was given the title: "The Best at making Everybody Feel Good".