Teacher’s Fight for Right to Fail

In response to your article on Larry Brown, I would like to offer the view of a student.

I graduated from a Northern California high school (Monta Vista in Cupertino), with a 3.3 grade-point average. I do not remember ever doing more than half an hour of homework a week, if that. I did not learn any useful study habits, or in fact much of anything.

What high school was for me was an exercise in last-minute cramming and luck. I was luckier than many, in that I received high enough grades and also SAT scores to be admitted to UCLA. I am aware of friends who had higher grade-point averages than mine and got into private universities and even UC Berkeley with even less studying in high school.

My teachers were interesting, thought-provoking, and, in general, good, caring teachers, but they were either too easy or too naive to see that they were engaged in a game with us, the students, trying to fake them out, and receive A’s or B’s for nothing.

The same pattern, for me at least, continued in college. I would go to class only when absolutely necessary, as on a test or review day. However, the system here at UCLA finally caught up with me, and I was dismissed from the university. I returned to my local junior college where my high school habits were reinforced once again. I achieved the required average to be readmitted to UCLA, not through any miracle that changed me into a real student, but through luck and a slight fear of my parent’s wrath.

Now I am back at UCLA and still have the problem of absent study habits, although I am beginning slowly to overcome this and keep myself in good academic standing.

I feel lucky that the system of higher education finally gave me a chance to re-evaluate my standing both as a student and as a productive member of society. However, even the system here at UCLA allows for the same kind of abuse that the high school system did. It is possible for a student to make it through without any great effort or worry. I still don’t study as much as I should, and studying for tests by cramming seems to be the norm here, not the exception. But at least I finally realized the problem within myself and am trying to correct it.

For these reasons, I support the effort being made by Larry Brown and others like him to correct this trend toward laziness and uncaring attitudes in students. Our educational system is becoming less of the privilege it is, and more of a baby-sitting service for uncaring, disrespectful, immature brats (myself included). If only more teachers, and people in general cared for the children and the future in the way that Brown seems to.

ANDREW FIALA

Los Angeles