Chris Chan
Revision
Prof. Hall
           âBalls of steelâ
As a child, your always told to just try your best but that isnât always the case. Majority of the time, playing it smart and not necessarily working hard gets you further. I was never a bad kid in school or in general causing havoc in class, disputes with teachers, etc. In class, I paid attention and did my work, got some laughs in with my friends, etc. I rarely got to hang out afterschool daily, I was picked up and didnât ride the train. At the time, I hated it and resented the proposition of being picked up because I wanted to hangout afterschool with my friends and take the train alongside with them. Afterschool, I went straight home and did homework. Homework always took at least an hour, with English being the most time consuming. That class always had me worried, we had to read multiple books every year. It was late October in 7th grade when I started to realize that almost everybody in my English class had similar grades, high 80s and 90s. The teacher wasnât bogus, she was legit, she graded precisely and hard. Seats were moved in the second semester and I had a new neighbor. His name was Orion, he was a tad taller than me and always had the newly released Jays on. I wouldnât say he had the best attendance nor care for his grades. However, we became good friends and sat together in other classes. One night, I struggled hard on this book review that I was given weeks to do and I didnât even finish reading the last 5 chapters. I ended up arriving to class the next morning empty handed. I was certain others had failed to do it as well. To my surprise, sitting beside me in the calmest stance, Orion had the whole sheet filled out. Every quote, explanation and scene, from each chapter written on his paper. I was in awe, I was stunned and asked how he finished it with such ease. I was expecting a response of hard work and nights of reading but instead he showed me a link to an online site that gave every detail from the book. To my surprise everyone had knew about this and I was kind of the only one that didn’t. It kinda struck me at that point that I was clueless to the vastness of the internet. I ended up getting an incomplete for my final grade. For the next assignment, I did what any other kid would have done. It was then I understood the shortcuts and imperfections within the system, for most cases, the complete sheet of assignment could be found online and copied directly. Meanwhile I see those actually struggling to complete certain work, others are simply doing it the easy way. While you think those that actually do it learn more, for some classes, homework are nothing but grades. Many teachers assign homework that are just a review of the lesson they have already learned. Many adults complain that children don’t go out enough to exercise, but sometimes you cant blame them when they have 6-8 classes a day with homework everyday from half the classes. During weekends, they’re too busy doing even more homework because their teachers simply believe they have a lot of “free” time.
Starting High school wasn’t easy for me, but things weren’t that different around here. I understood that it was gonna be a challenge for me and it was going to be hard. I met many new friends, made unforgettable memories and grew older and older each day. Repeated the usual for 3 years and with my senior year around the corner I passed my required regents to graduate, some students had the struggle of failing one or two primarily because their teachers hadn’t teach the properly. I remember when all the upper class men would ask to see our schedules and give feedback on teachers. Many of the times, they would suggest transferring out the class simply because the teacher could not teach to the standard. I stressed on SATs and college applications and had switched between 3 different guidance counselors, so I couldnât really go to anyone to ask about college. The SATs to me at the time was like a life changing testing, it was THAT intimidating to me. The hardest tests are the ones that you don’t know if you either absolutely flunked it or aced it. The night after we took the first school given SAT, I came out my shower and my phone was blowing up. I had scrolled to the top of the group chat to see what had originated from this spam of messages. My friend that went to another high school in Brooklyn sent, âHighkey just cheated on my SATâŚthis dude did not give a single shit.â Our first instinct was call bull, but he said insisted. Explaining to us that the proctor did not care at all and the whole class had their phones remaining inside their pockets. The proctor also left the classroom a great deal of times and even proceeded to take his own phone out. My proctor was out here checking peopleâs water bottles and calculator but his proctor could do such a thing. Of course, we all took to conclusion that maybe he was lying after all. Soon after, when we received the SAT scores back, we all pushed him to show his score. To our surprise, he got a 1400~, obviously OUR scores were nowhere near that range. The whole group chat had responses with jealousy and frustration. I remember seeing some of my friends study so hard and prepared for this test just to be outscored by those who had their phones out during the test.
There are many problems with the education system and in this essay, I only mentioned a few important ones. I agree that homework is beneficial but when a student has other classes, it is also their priority to keep up in those classes. The teacher should assign homework accordingly that should not exceed or overrule that child’s social life. Regents are also important in this conversation mainly because they are so limiting and affects the way a teacher is teaching. Why is it that a student’s regents grade be a reflection of how they are taught. Each teacher teaches in their own speed and method and shouldn’t be rush. The DOE should really consider making new changes towards the system and invest more time and money into our future. ” While students are 20% of our population, they are 100% of our future. –Tony Blair”
